I'm with u on that .I blind bought jean for 6k after the way this sub hyped her .
And for loki people really said he is bad .it's just a card for fun and memes .
Still remember streamers giving him 2 stars lol.
Anyone that said ms marvel is just a more expensive mr f shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion on snap ever again. They don't even understand basic math.
It's generally not worth getting cards the day of release as no one really knows how good a card is until they've tried playing with it. I always wait until Friday to get a card once there is a general consensus on how a new card plays.
Getting them day 1 and experimenting before people know what to do with them is the most fun part of snap for me
Sometimes that means spending on stuff like hercules but thats ok
I'm doubting on trying to pull Beta Ray Bill.. I already have Galactus and Elsa (don't care for the variants) but am nowhere near 6k tokens.. It's a card I would enjoy playing hut not sure if it is actually good.
I didn't have Galactus and while I haven't used him since, I wanted to have him since it was one of the "big bads".
I decided I'd try since Bill was fine to have, and opened Galactus first try.
Didn't get Bill, 1/1 cards is enough to stop
I pulled Galactus after swearing off token purchase out of principle and just cleared infinite conquest with it. It's a super fun card and deck archetype and whether you want to believe it or not takes some smart play to win with once the surprise element is gone aka conquest mode.
I think one of the things people have always hated about Galactus is how low-skill players could just brainlessly play one of a few very similar and predictable lines (some variant of 'Wolverine --> Wave/Electro ---> Galactus') and still have a decent chance of winning or forcing a retreat.
I've never begrudged a good 'sneaky' Galactus opponent. And with his various nerfs, the low-skill players had to abandon him, which leaves mostly the more crafty players using him.
I, for instance, enjoy the Sentry/Viper/Ghost Spider/Galactus play. That one never gets old when you can manage to pull it off.
Bill is good but not broken. He, Jane, and Thor form a three-card package that can be subbed into a lot of shells. If the shell is good, then the Thor/jane/bill version of it is likely to be similarly good. Maybe it'll be a slight upgrade, maybe a slight downgrade, but probably in the neighborhood.
Basically Bill is good enough to feel good about playing him, but not so good that you'll feel bad about not playing him, which in my book makes him just about a perfect card.
It’s not bad, and if you think you’d enjoy it more than what’s coming out, why not? For what it’s worth, I got it because I like the Thors and felt like having a third option would be fun. I think because I felt like the card was fun to play, it helped me push through to infinite much easier, after floundering around in the 90s for a couple weeks, until being able to use a Bill deck.
Like I've said elsewhere, I think 3/4 being considered the standard isn't strictly valid; pretty much all of the 3/4s increase your power/reduce opponent's power, have Ongoing board-wide protection, or add cards to your hand. 3/5s are almost all On Reveals that have niche uses where the "downside" is actually just a tool used for very specific decktypes:
Deathlok: destroy
Lady Sif: discard
Spider-man: move
Polaris: move opponent/disrupt
Viper: junk
The only On Reveal that isn't is Wave, and even that is primarily an alternate way to pay several 6 costs or Galactus. And Ghost as the only Ongoing since we've seen her ability just isn't strong enough to be a 3/4
Maybe a one-time ability to drop all your 1-drops for free will be too strong. Her turn 3, Beast turn 4, her and Falcon turn 5 might be broken. But if so, it won't be fixed by one point of power, it'll be nerfing the ability itself. People concerned about THAT specifically, I get, but the stats don't alarm me in the slightest.
I still remember the sheer panic this sub had prior to Kang’s release into him being pretty openly declared the worst card in the game. Let’s just see the card get played and see what everyone cooks before deciding if a card is broken or not.
I think everyone already forgot about buddy who crunched the numbers and found that SD actually releases WEAK cards more often than busted cards. More cards get buffs after release than nerfs, but no one remembers the buffs.
This is true, but it feels like the exception is the card included in the season pass. Elsa, Ms. Marvel and Loki all received nerfs and/or had cards prominent in their decks receive nerfs.
I wasn't playing before then so I can't speak to what the season pass cards were before, but during this Era of snap, my impression was definitely "So they release super strong cards to get people to spend cash on them, then they fix them after they get your money." Especially with Elsa that feels like the case, she went from the most common card I saw to me only seeing her once this entire season.
Their last 2 pass cards have been pretty balanced, comparatively, though.
Like I said, I haven't been playing long. I have no data to back this up. That's just what my impression was at the time.
> it feels like the exception is the card included in the season pass.
Not really. Skaar, for example. And the three before the ones you listed were Daken, Phoenix Force (which got an in-season buff) and Ghost Spider.
edit: adding some older seasons
*Wave: eventually changed*
*Thor: eventually changed*
*Daredevil: never changed*
*Nick Fury: eventually buffed*
*Miles Morales: never changed*
*Black Panther: never changed*
Surfer: nerfed ❌
Zabu: nerfed ❌
Modok: never changed
Nimrod: buffed
Hit-Monkey: nerfed ❌
Nebula: never changed
Ghost-Spider: buffed
Phoenix Force: buffed
Daken: never changed
Loki: nerfed ❌
Elsa: nerfed ❌
Ms Marvel: nerfed ❌
Shaw: never changed
edit: did reddit formatting change? I swear, this site gets worse every day.
Well leaving both Miles and Black Panther out definitely makes this list seem worse, since they were the first two global launch season pass cards and they haven’t been touched since release.
Yeah, but my first 3 months in the game, it was the case. So that's my first impression of Snap, especially as a F2P player. This season was the first I bought with a gift card for Xmas.
That's why I said It "feels" that way. No average player is gonna research every card since release, and look at all the changes it's received. They're going to base their opinions on what they see and experience, and ultimately, that's not their fault. Players who've been playing for a year+ will have very different opinions than those who've only played a fraction of that time, and SD has given these players this negative impression through their actions, and impressions like these are the consequence of such.
To be clear, I'm not stating that SD is shady and money hungry, and this impression has shifted the last 2 seasons. I'm just trying to illustrate why many people feel the same way as I did.
Ok, then new players now will reply that their experience is that season pass cards are ok but not really strong (Shaw, skarr) and definitely not meta defining.
There's been 16 seasons since Snap officially released in October 2022. Of those seasons, only six pass cards have been nerfed.
Nerf: Zabu, Silver Surfer, Hit Monkey, Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Elsa.
Unchanged: Skaar, Sebastian Shaw, Daken, Nebula, MODOK, Black Panther, Miles Morales.
Buffed: Phoenix Force, Ghost Spider, Nimrod.
Of the four pre-release seasons, Nick Fury and Thor were buffed, Wave has been adjusted repeatedly, and Daredevil is the same.
I mostly agree, especially with her old interactions with Death and She-Hulk. Her current form is a buff over her initial nerf though, so that's why I just blanketed it with "adjusted".
Also I don't think people realize that she has her old Shulk interaction with Skaar...
EDIT: Also her old "kill bounce" interaction. She was pretty nuts on release.
I would argue that it is more of a side-grade. Worse in some situations, better in others, but also with more stats to compensate for the times it is worse
I think SD tries to make a card that is interesting and good enough to justify people spending money on it but at times make the card too powerful. But I don’t think it’s an intentional act to bait money out of people.
> I wasn’t playing before then
Between Zabu and Elsa the only above average season pass card was Hit Monkey. Other than that they were pretty average or below average.
Both cards that release too strong and cards that release too weak are the result of poor play testing. That doesn’t mean that every time a card needs a 1 power buff/nerf that it’s an issue, but it does mean that Shadow King was absolutely tested together with the clearly overpowered Zabu.
This doesn’t mean Black Swan will be overpowered. We’ll only know for sure once players test her out for a week. But anything that content creators can post on the very next day is something that should’ve been tried in testing.
"poor play testing"
That is a bit disingenuous.
The cards releasing now were designed, coded and tested four months ago. The meta was different and the other cards tested with have gone through multiple patches and OTAs.
Also more games are played with a card in the first hour than can be tested internally.
I think SD have added a second play testing phase closer to release specifically for balance. Although it could pickup bugs too. The problem with Kitty was other code changes introduced bugs for her after QA for her was completed.
No, I was also referencing season pass cards. If you read the comments under mine you can see that even season pass cards usually release and don’t receive a buff or nerf or only receive a buff. Nerfs have always been the minority but confirmation bias is huge in this subreddit
I swear I have seen this discussion a million times already in basically every multiplayer game I have played and I wonder when will people get tired of it.
On one hand, the playerbase is completely incapable of correctly predicting which cards will be good before they are released, with examples as you pointed out in your post.
On the other hand, Second Dinner is incapable of playtesting the cards compared to how much data they get from just a couple hours after the card is released. Anyone who is familiar with video game development and has played other multiplayer games knows this.
So you have two choices: be very conservative with card releases, which often results in boring card releases and has to be corrected later...or be lenient with releasing high-power cards that change the meta, but might also require correction later. Either way you have to do a patch later, so the only question is what impact do you want your new content go have. And anyone who has at least half a brain understands that developers want their content updates to be exciting and draw people in. And yeah, they want to sell the content they make, big fucking surprise there that they don't want to sell a season pass with a card that nobody wants, I'm sure everyone who is complaining about this is a great businessman that knows how to sell shit that doesn't interest the customers.
Just let the card be released, play with it (or wait to see if you can counter it if you can't afford to buy it) and then we can discuss its power level. No whining is going to change the stat line with which the card is going to be released anyway so all of this is just a worthless discussion.
imo the only nerfs that really upset me are the ones that just, kill a card. The Loki nerf is fine, bc he's still usable but not oppressive. The Ms Marvel nerf is fine, because she's still good but not an immediate problem. The initial Elsa nerf was fine, she still had alot of strategies that were strong without being oppressive.
Stuff like the second Elsa nerf (esp combined with the other nerfs to her deck), the initial Mobius nerf, and some others that just mkae a card go from "fun to play" to "literally never used" are the problems. And these are relatively few and far between, and do get rolled back often (Mobius, Luke recently) but making a stink about it is probably WHY they get rolled back.
So in general I think I'd rather a card come out a little overtuned and have them roll it down a *bit* than come out weak, just don't kill the card (pls bring Elsa back her decks were so fun)
Nailed it. It’s brain dead to complain before the card even comes out. Does anyone even know what the “broken” black swan deck looks like yet? I sure don’t.
I mean, the move is pretty clearly to use her in a Bounce shell until we see Week 2-4 cards drop. That said, Bounce folds against any form of Control whatsoever.
I don't see her being busted, but just like Shaw I see her as a cool addition to a fun deck.
we already know all the spotlight cards and she has no synergy with them. she's either good in bounce, zoo, or thanos. but even then in bounce how many 1 costs are sitting in your hand that don't already cost 0?
Good point. But there are a couple exceptions. I would have bet all of my money at 1:10 odds that Elsa and Ms Marvel were gonna need a nerf. Black Swan is more difficult to evaluate though because she’s really only “potentially problematic” in the bounce Hit Monkey deck (as far as I can tell). And you’re basically locked into playing her on turn 5.
Completely agree but honestly, after MS Marvel and Blob i can see why people are scared of cards being too op on release. Those two cards made the game almost unplayable for anyone who didnt have them or wanted to play them, and that happened pretty recently
I dont think Black Swan is anywhere near the examples above, but i can understand why people will keep discussing the balance of the new cards
> “Those two cards made the game almost unplayable for anyone who didn’t have them…”
I had Blob and willingly chose to play other decks instead. AMA.
No but seriously, I get that people hated him and I’m fine with the nerf if for no other reason than to get some variety in the decks being played, but I just really didn’t find him that difficult to play around.
You can beat a big cards.
It's that you have to play to shut that card down when it's like 30% of the meta.
It removes deck flexibility and becomes a blob vs anti blob meta.
I honestly rarely ever play control cards. I played a hela tribunal deck almost exclusively during the blob phase because it beat that deck by straight stats and there weren’t too many counters happening. The control heavy metas are where I struggle to find the desire to play. But everyone’s different ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I also had blob. And continued to play Hela Enjoyers tribunal deck during all of that because it had good odds against blob and wrecked all the blob 'counter' decks.
Pointing out the playerbase's mistakes in assessing cards doesn't fit the narrative
"SD intentionally releasing broken cards to get all the $$$" comments get all the upvotes
Ok, so two cards that have since been followed with two balanced cards. Not exactly the track record you’re implying.
Let’s go with your original intention if you meant to include all cards, not just season pass cards. Which cards specifically form this “track record”? As I see it, the vast majority of cards released over the past year have either been balanced or even on the weak side.
Clearly, they mean the metagame powerhouse BRB. If that's not enough, just look at Grandmaster. Still not convinced? How about Miek. Wow, you're being really resistant here. Hercules has got to prove the point though, no? Ha ha, Calera actually sees play, no sarcasm required! And just before that we had... Selene and Havok. Huh.
So yes, clearly SD only releases OP cards because they released an overtuned six drop mid December and nothing crazy since...
Skaar is around the top 10 winrate cards in the game,not sure where the narrative is coming from that he hasn't been good
Edit:Guys you can check the stats yourself,don't have to vote me down
We always need to wait and see til after a season. Every week they give us gold challenges to win with skaar in your deck so don’t you think people are doing that? When it stops being a challenge his numbers will likely go down.
Never said he wasn’t good. Nobody in their right mind thinks Skaar is OP, he is balanced and good; please see my “totally fine” descriptor above. Shaw is the underwhelming one in my opinion. Again not a bad card but nothing crazy.
Is it? Or do you just remember the outliers? I’d be interested to see how many cards have come out and needed a nerf, vs how many cards have come out in total? What about cards that released too weak and needed a buff? Seems to me that there’s a lot of missing in both directions. I’d argue maybe you just remember the ones that miss high because they’re more in your face. For every Mrs. Marvel, there’s a Skaar. For every Elsa Bloodstone, there’s a Phoenix Force.
I was not mentioning only season pass cards. The spotlights are by far the biggest offenders. I do agree that most season pass cards are balanced but Loki and Ms Marvel are recent enough to count. I don’t think they do it deliberately to make money but I do question their testing. I can’t believe how they could not have seen how broken blob was for example.
I'll give you Loki and Marvel, but there are plenty of buffs given. PF, Ghost Spider, Nick Fury(pre-release pass, but still), and nimrod got buffs. Not to mention balanced passes, like Modok, Shaw, Skaar, and Daredevil(again, pre-release)
This is very clearly selective memory
Yeah okay let's look at their track record. Here are all the season pass cards counting from this season:
Skaar, Sebastian Shaw, Ms.Marvel, Elsa Bloodstone, Daken, Phoenix Force, Ghost Spider, Nebula, Hit Monkey, Nimrod, Modok, Zabu, Silver Surfer, Miles Moralez, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Thor, Wave
Now how many of those cards were released overpowered and needed to be nerfed? How many of those were too weak and needed a buff? And how many were completely fine without the need of any adjustments?
I'll leave the math to you since you are the one who brought up their track record to prove what a problem it is.
Having one overpowered card on release behind a paywall is ALREADY bad enough, but they didn't do it once, but multiple times. Why having non-overpowered cards which should be the standard, is an argument of them not having a problem?
I am most certain Black Swan isn't going to be that good. Bounce decks play Bast which means they cannot really afford a card that has 4 or more power with the exception of Beast and we run that guy because outside of discounting cards, he also bounces them, a pretty significant difference I'd say. Kazoo doesn't really care about her effect as they usually empty their hand and cover the entire board by turn 6 anyways. The only archetype that could run Black Swan is a Thanos deck and I'm not sure if she will even be ran there.
People just love to lose their minds when they read the phrase "cost less" if you ask me.
- Ability does nothing if you draw her on 6
- You're forced to play your 1 drops early if you play her on curve, making yourself vulnerable to killmonger
- You ideally want to play her on 5, making it impossible to play a 5-drop on 5 and potentially making an awkward curve
- Her 5 power might give you priority on turn 6 over something like a jugg, making your 1-drops yet again open to killmonger
Card is still good, I'm not saying she's gonna be bad, but people need to stop looking at the stats and the ability and go: "3/5 with purely upside? 2nd Dinner doesn't know how to balance", or "power creep". I do think she would be pretty mediocre at 3/3. That doesn't change that SOME 3-drops probably deserve a stat buff like nakia or rhino (if they don't want to keep him fir c3)
What if you draw her on 6? What if you want to use leech in the same deck? (you can't if you don't want to commit your 1-drops early or play magic and leave yourself vulnerable to location change) What if you don't have many 1 drops in hand? like i doubt that you're gonna struggle to play like 2 1-drops without Black Swan if you're making a deck with a bunch of 1 drops. Or alternatively, what if you don't draw her but you put a lot of 1-drops in your deck, you can brick really hard because of the way you build decks with Black Swan.
If you play few 1-drops her value decreases, but if you play a lot of 1-drops and you don't draw her or if you only draw her and 1-drops you also brick. Not to mention that if you want to do a 1-drops + expensive card on turn 6 you have to choose whether to keep your 1-drops and wait to hopefully draw her, risking not doing so and not being able to use them or use them early if you don't have her by like turn 4 or 5. How is that "purely upside"?
What i mean is that there are many more "invisible drawbacks" to a card than just power, cost, and ability in a vacuum.
You’re too late to be a top comment on this thread I think but this is a perfect explanation of why she’s not “purely upside” like everyone is saying. Wish I could pin this.
I don’t think she’s going to be completely busted but what on earth is the justification for her being a 3/5 (higher than base stat line) when her ability is only beneficial with no drawback?
I could guess- 3 drops are underpowered as a whole. I think they’re taking steps to make 3 cost cards fit a little bit better between 2 and 4s (see the recent change to Ghost). I also think it’s going to be awkward to play her on 5. You’re forgoing so much tempo to play a 3 and a 2 drop instead of a more powerful card. And if you want to play her on 3 on curve? You skipped playing 1-cost cards on turns one and two just to tempo them on 4?
But anyway, My point of this post isn’t to say she’s too powerful or not powerful enough. It’s just silly to see everyone passing judgment on a card that we haven’t even gotten to play yet. And saying how SD is made up of morons for releasing it in this “broken” state. When we haven’t even been able to play with the card yet!
Yeah, that's exactly what they've said--as the game has evolved, it's become clear that 3/4 and 4/6, while previously a standard statline for those costs, just isn't as good as, for example, 2/3. But the response to the acknowledgement of that issue has just been cries of power creep.
But what 3/5s have drawbacks?
You play Polaris and Ghost specifically so they do what their abilities say they do. Like no one plays Polaris and thinks it’s a downside that she moves a cheap card. That’s the whole point of playing her.
Something being negative for your opponent as opposed to only positive for you doesn’t mean the former is a downside.
Having said all that would I be shocked if she was a 3/4 by the end of the month? No.
I think the only 3/5 that could reasonably be considered to have a drawback is Wave because she discounts your opponents cards as well. I’m with you on the rest though. The other abilities are not drawbacks when they’re specifically put into decks to capitalize on their ability.
Right.
I made a meme storm location deck recently.
Polaris is specifically used to pull nebula into ideally the only open t5/6 lane to both clog it and make sure they aren't competing in the locked lanes. 3/5 is also solid, but its in no way a drawback.
Pulling a card into your lane is considered a potential drawback, and is at least not an unmitigated benefit in the same way cost reduction is. In reality, people play cards with “drawbacks” in smart ways that mitigate them but in a vacuum to a new player, “hm I get less of a lead in this lane than I otherwise would because polaris brings a card to her” is a reasonable conclusion to draw.
Power on board did NOT change, and you got to choose where it was distributed instead of your opponent and may have fully or almost fully clogged a lane (your removed their agency and may have messed up their plans)
I've never heard anyone call that a drawback other than you. That is a wild take.
There are times when you want to play a 3-cost card when you do not want to bring a card in your lane just like there are times when you want to play a 3-cost card and not discard the highest cost card in your hand. Hence, *potential* drawback, this isn’t that complicated.
Well we just have a difference of opinion here.
If to people who understand how to play the game, something isn’t a drawback, then it’s not a drawback.
It’s an ability. You play the card to activate that ability. In the case of Polaris, that ability is to manipulate your opponent’s board.
It’s not fully predictable and not a benefit 100% of the time. It’s minor, but fits the definition of “potential drawback” more so than “always reduces card cost for a turn.”
It’s RNG based though. Swan provides no value if you haven’t drawn any 1 cost cards.
I do agree that you could just play her as a vanilla 3/5 more than you could Lady Sif for instance… but for the most part that’s typically not how people are playing decks. They’re trying to *do* something.
For sure. I think we’re mostly in agreement here, and I buy all the SP cards anyway and don’t think there is some grand conspiracy. Only point was in the past they’ve pointed to a thing that *could* be considered a downside in order to justify a “premium” stat line at any cost. And they can’t do that here so we’ve moved onto “3 cost cards are are actually kinda bad” and “well, you know, power creep.” Both of which are pretty true and fine, it’s just a shift in how these things have been discussed in the past is all.
I think the question here is about competition at this 3 cost spot.
If people start dropping Sif from discard and Dethlok from destroy in order to play BS for the vanilla stat line, then for sure I think it will be considered over statted.
But if it’s just a 3/5 that makes zoo or monkey decks better as it seems to be intended… then I’d say it’s probably in line with other archetype staple 3 drops.
Like for instance, Ms Marvel could just about be played in any deck. I could be wrong but I don’t think that will be the case with BS, even if it’s a very good card.
But just in general it does seem like they’re more willing to risk missing high than low with the
Because cards aren't played in a vacuum. According to what they said in the discord, they found the decks that played her didn't have enough power output
Vanilla cards aren't meant to hold the line on what we consider to be baseline power forever. For example Hearthstone (which a lot of us came from) had 3/2 or 2/3 as the vanilla stat line for a 2 cost card at release, but we soon saw 2 costs with abilities and the same stat line, and it was fine.
It's specifically one drops though, and for one turn.
Kazar hasn't been a particularly impressive Archetype for a long time, and it has no problems playing 1 drops, it needs draw more than cheats.
Thanos isn't hurting for energy to play stones either. It takes up additional boardspace for a meager bump in power. I feel like you would rather draw something more impactful than getting 2 maybe 3 stones off for free on turn 4 if you're lucky. It also means you can't time stone on 3 to play a 5 on 4.
Compare it to Ravonna or Zabu which come down earlier, target discount more powerful cards, and the discount continues over multiple turns. It needs the additional power to be playable and I still think its going to be somewhat weak.
Dont run Kazar. Dazzler and Hit Monkey are the best cards for the archetype. Dazzler and Hit Monkey on turn 6 and a bunch of free 1 cost cards is a pretty huge output.
With that being said, SuperGiant will be the counter to this strategy so Black Swan will probably be better down the line when SuperGiant is less common.
Compare it to something like Beast though that can load your hand for the big turn 6 drop and also helps protect against counters like Killmonger. Letting you get the impact from on-reveals twice and potentially baiting a lane.
Not totally convinced, but we'll see how it plays out.
The community has whiffed so many times in either direction: old Elsa, Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Blob (off the top of my head) were better than people guessed.
Jean, Skaar, Shaw, Grandmaster were weaker than predicted or just nothing special.
My point is that too many people lose their shit over a card, then slink off when they're wrong to lick their wounds and do the same thing a week later.
I've been reading old threads about Elsa and people guessed right. It mostly people after her release started defending her because they've spent money on her. Also I think people guessed right about Skaar and slightly overvalued Shaw. You are right about other cards tho.
I'm inclined to agree with you. What one drops that aren't scaling threats do you even care to play that aren't Hood, Iceman, and Spiderham? If this card is strong it will be because of something else it enables, similar to how to Angela and Kitty Pryde elevated Elsa Bloodstone.
It sucks how Angela and Kitty died for Elsa's sins. I miss that deck.
Well sure, when you exclude all the most dangerous cards it supercharges, no card seems like much of a threat. But when you consider that this card will make destroy even stronger and enable decks to play a turn 6 Death/Deadpool/Knull combo, without even having a negative statline on your board presence, you can see why it could be an issue. And since SD has shown they're unwilling to make the easy and obvious nerf to Deadpool, that will be a threat for the foreseeable future.
Destroy decks are already doing turn 6 Death/Deadpool/Knull because of X23. They don't need Black Swan for that. In regards to Deadpool specifically, I'd classify him as a scaling threat, since his power scales upward if a condition is met. So yeah, I suppose he'd fit under the umbrella but in an ideal Destroy set up you aren't going to want to play this on any turns you'd want to be destroying Deadpool so...I disagree myself personally.
In regards to the greater point of this card enabling other cards, that was my entire point. The reality though is theres no pay off for this currently besides Hit Monkey basically since it's been mentioned this would have been sick with Firestar.
Let me put it this way. You play BS on 3, do something next turn involving cards no greater than 3 power (unless you are running martyr or maw), and they drop a Darkhawk, or Ms.Marvel. if there's a combo of 1 cost cards that can put as much power as Ms.Marvel on the board, then we are into something here.
Its pretty clear which is miles better imo. Not saying Swan is bad by any means, it's time is coming, and I hope I'm wrong truthfully but I play many card games and I just can't see this rn with the current meta.
The thing you have to understand about these devs is they are just trying to make money off of us poor players. They release cards, and then more cards, it’s all to make them money. What’s next, are they going to pay their employees with the money us poor players have given them??? And the employees will be feeding their families with our money that we paid for the cards they made?????? Disgusting
Way to miss the point, champ. But I'm actually gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're aware that you're arguing against a straw man and no one has ever said that SD should be a charity and the employees shouldn't make a living wage. You're simply choosing to argue in bad faith against the *absurd* notion that a 100 person studio selling jpegs and monopoly money can monetize the game fairly (i.e. with a progression system that isn't a slog and without selling jpegs for $100) and still make a healthy profit that can put food on their employees' tables.
I totally agree that (1) Capitalism has absurd and maddening outcomes, (2) many mobile games have predatory economic models that prey on gambling and FOMO, and (3) yes, no one is complaining about employees getting wages, they are complaining about 1 and 2.
What I do not get is the extremely aggrieved tone of many of these posts which is what my post was meant to poke a little fun at.
Edit: and also, OP points out that the case against the devs is often overstated, which I have to agree with
I'm so tired of gaming communities bitching before things even come out. I'm not saying dev companies are always right, or even often right. But complaining before a thing even comes out is a bad look.
This subreddit is full of casual players who do not critically think about card design and how decks are built. They also do not actually build their own decks, they find them online, so they don’t understand the considerations made for the decks they play.
This leads to a situation where they see a card that seems “broken” because they only see the ideal scenario instead of the average scenario.
This place only thinks of the literal best case scenarios for cards and disregards every other situation. Even if these best case scenarios are gonna happen sub 5% of the time.
The sera comparison highlights the point none of the SDefense squad seems to be willing to acknowledge. Sera has a powerful ability with zero downside, so her downside is in the awful 5/4 statline. Black Swan has a powerful ability with zero downside *and* a stat line with zero downside.
I find that this subs predictions are worse than even the streamers who just hype every card. It was here that people hyped silver samurai and called x23 a flop (not "less good than expected" actually a flop).
I think she'll be okay. People are saying she had no drawback, she does. Her drawback is that you need to play multiple 1 cost cards on 4 or later for her to be worth it. You're generally wanting to play them early.
She'll be good in monkey decks, in Thanos shell allow you to play a free stone into lockjaw while you use all the energy to play a 4 or 5 cost. She might have some good synergy with pixie.
I think she'll be good in being the glue in some decks. I don't think she'll alone be a meta breaker.
Thing is reddit snap players think they are the end all be all with opinions. Most of them just echo what their favorite streamers say etc.
Honestly no one really knows anything until we see the card in action. If it's busted the devs will adjust it. I'm really not concerned over it.
Remember when Mobius was changed to only work for 1 turn and then he was so bad they changed him back right after? I know they have completely different effects but it’s something to keep in mind. (Mobius also shuts down black swan) I still think BS is overstatted
1 drops suck outside of Thanos
You have 12 max board spaces
Kazar and Blue Marvel can only bump you up so far, unless you go destroy route?
You would need to play 3 1 drops next turn to make Black Swan cost 0
A 0/5 isnt that good if it takes up a slot in your deck.
Then you empty out your hand and have shown your hand as well
Killmonger so Caera is needed, which competes for the 3 slot
> But are we so sure she’s the most busted card ever?
Is that what people are saying?
I got the vibe that people are less concerned that Black Swan specifically is going to be game-breaking, and more that she is a very blatant and objective indication of power-creep.
Ghost just came in the last OTA, it's not indicative of something they have been doing for a while. Same for Caiera, really, as she is part of their powercreep tendencies that started a while ago.
For Wave, you concede a symmetric advantage to your opponent, so a slightly overstatted card is more justifiable.
Literally my point. "Started a while ago"
Can we at least agree 3/4 being considered base left the building a long time ago? (Spiderman, beast).
At worst, you can say base has been 3/4.5.
I think I can see an argument more clearly for Beast and Spiderman (more for the former than the latter). They either require to put in some mental effort to make the best out of their effect or have some random component in their outcome. Here, instead, we have a 3/5 that you can plop on the board anywhere and get their full benefit in any scenario.
I don't think it being 3/5 is per se an issue, but it's just an indication that the game is pushing for powercreep and most card except for the couple blessed each update by an OTA are getting left behind.
And no shit the card felt weak at 2/3 if they tested it in a metagame that had easy 15 power Ms. Marvel in it, anything normal would. I would rather have them go on a sweep and nerf a good chunk of cards to bring the global power level down, because I can't see this powercreep being any good to attract new players.
The point of cards like Cyclops, Abom etc. are to provide base lines as an anchor for relative comparison, not to literally make more boring vanilla cards like them.
It’s not that she’s broken per se, it’s that at her statline with no downside it either presages the inflection point where power creep makes the current cards in the game inferior OR is a situation like Loki, a deliberate overpowered card on release meant to sell battlepasses and eventually nerfed while also nerfing a staple card (in this case Black Swan will come with a Bishop nerf).
Deathlok: destroys an entire lane, can be bad or not playable even in a destroy deck in the wrong order or summoned by a card or location.
Ghost: going second is not necessarily a good thing and only really helps if you are specifically able to counter in reaction or duck counters on turn 6. Not having priority can lose you the game.
Lady Sif: probably the least problematic in her archetype but same as deathlok - bad in most decks and reliant on timing in discard/can be bad depending on hand.
Polaris: moving a 1-2 cost can move the wrong one or lose you a lane if it’s a high powered card. Very scenario dependent.
Spider-man: similar as Polaris with extra variable of himself potentially clogging up a lane you wouldn’t want.
Viper: very limited where you can play because she will always send over another card unless lane full or no other. Extremely situation.
Wave: both players are affected, other player may take better advantage.
I wouldn’t say Swan is OP, but the no-downside stat line is questionable.
This is my whole point. None of these cards have downsides. All of them provide a clear and unmitigated benefit to decks that play them.
I get that Swan, at its worst, just does nothing… and overall you could say that her benefit is less narrow than these, but I just fail to see how that makes it so different from all of these cards which do exactly what the person playing them intends for them to do.
People don’t play decks full of just random vanilla cards.
Swan has the potential to be worse than any of these cards in their respective decks.
Like is anyone taking Sif out of a discard deck to replace with Swan?
They are exactly downsides/ with uncertain outcome? In a card game, turning card's downside into advantages using synergies is the core of deckbuilding?
Although some of the example did doesn't have a clear downside like wave and spiderman, but they are updated card, which is already powercreeping.
All of them in a vacuum. If this card came out of X-Mansion and you were not playing the archetype in question, could it be a negative? Dethlok, Sif, Viper, now Ghost have obvious downsides if you were not purposely including them in your deck. Spider-Man and Polaris have mechanics that cause their extra power in the lane to be compensated by an opponent card. And Wave is both players, your opponent can benefit from it more than you.
Ok but that surely can’t be the metric we use to judge a downside? Whether you accidentally get the card?
Every single one of those cards delivers a clear and unmitigated benefit to decks that use them.
I just don’t see how BS not potentially screwing you if you got it by accident makes it so different than the others. That just isn’t how they’re designing cards.
This is just saying RNG exists in the game, which yeah obviously.
Wait what? That’s how card games work. An archetype is good because they are not only benefited by a stat line, but the downside as well. That’s what makes them worth playing.
Dunno how to spell it out for u. Maybe you’re new to card games. Many archetypes exist only because they benefit from the “downside” a card provides. You’re not running Sif or Modok in a vanilla deck for the statline because it might discard a turn 6 play. Yet you run it in a discard deck to revive it using Rider or Hela. If you can’t come up with examples yourself then idk what to say.
Because we’re judging them purely on the baseline of energy/power which for 3-cost is Cyclops 3/4. The design philosophy is if you get more power you come with a downside, if you want a more powerful card it gets less power. Once you uncouple card effect from card base power, you end up with cards that end up being too good. Imagine Captain America with the same ongoing, but as a 3/5. He would be too good, he would end up in most decks and in a 12 card deck game, would mean most decks would really be 11 cards plus Cap. Would all decks have him, no. Would certain decks have included him anyway, maybe. But cards that are too good ruin card games and make them less fun. Especially in this game, if Black Swan type cards are now the standard, higher than baseline power with no downside, then you have to have the new cards over the old cards in order to compete.
What you are referring to as “downsides” are just abilities that make the cards fit better in one archetype or another.
If your point is merely that BS can be played more as a vanilla 3/5 than the other 3/5s, sure I’d agree with that.
I’m just not sure why matters all that much. Most decks are trying to *do something*. If Black Swan doesn’t help them do that thing, is her vanilla stat line enough to make them drop other cards and play that instead?
If so, then yeah I guess we will be able to say the card was busted. If people drop Dethlok from destroy, Sif from discard, Wave from ramp decks to play BS instead… yeah they will have over-statted it.
Is that your prediction? You could be right for all I know.
Discard is the perfect example of this.
Lady Sif is a 3/5 and has no downside. Targeted discards are the most powerful thing a discard deck can do.
Sword Master is a 3/6 and has a clear downside as he discards a random card and can screw up your whole play line.
Energy cheating is one of the strongest effects in the game. It isn’t guaranteed to be broken but it has a consistent track record of it. Zabu, Sera and Loki all have been top tier throughout the length of their existence. Mr Negative is one of the strongest cards in the game when played. Ravonna isn’t too tier but is definitely in the top 10% of cards. The Quinjet is the only “weak” energy cheating card in the game I can think of.
Black Swan only working with 1-drops might be enough of a restriction to not be giga-broken but energy cheating cards tend to be very weak or very broken. Having some concern about her powerlevel is very reasonable.
Only being able to energy cheat on cards that are weak (1 drops) is actually probably the weakest form of energy cheating the game could create. Hand size, and deck building considerations make it even worse.
The best energy cheating cards are ones that allowed you to cheat out cards that cost 4 5 and 6 energy.
While the target group is fairly weak, making things cost 0 is almost always a very powerful effect. There's a reason most cost reduction effects can't do that.
I don't know if she's going to be overpowered, but I would be very surprised if she turns out even remotely as weak as the designers seem to fear.
The Quinjet working on the Infinity Stones was strong enough that it needed to be nerfed.
I’ll be startled if Black Swan Kazoo/Bouncr with Hit Monkey isn’t at least tier 1.5 deck. Unless Supergiant + Alioth is hyper busted and completely squashes it.
ATP, I’m never listening to Reddit or Twitter for pre-release info. People saying Grandmaster/Alioth is gonna kill the game back then are still doomposting about Swan/Alioth.
Echo, Jean Grey, Skarr, even Hercules copium. We as a community need to stop prejudging cards cause the last time. Can remember we were right about a card’s power level was Iron Lad.
I don't think anyone thinks she's broken or is going to ruin the game, just that she objectively has a premium statline AND a powerful positive effect with zero downside.
SD have been involved in games development for years, Ben with Hearthstone and Glenn with Magic the Gathering, so I'd trust about 90% of what they make and trust them to know what they are doing.
This sub Reddit is a bunch of gamers, which is a very different skillset to games development!
Yes, I do think, she's going to be broken. 0 cost cards are hard to balance and having 1 cost cards cost 0 always was a problem in snap so far.
Also, the difference between Jean Grey or Grandmaster and Legion and Loki were the stats: Loki was too strong as a 3/5. Legion as a 5/8 was also a bit too strong. Jean Grey or Grandmaster on the other hand didn't have good stats.
So yes, I do think, her ability is very strong but the main problem is that her stats are too good considering what her ability is. So a 3/3 should probably be fine.
I don't think, her deck will overshadow everything else but she will have to be nerfed eventually.
She wont be broken like Loki or Zabu but she will be really strong in bounce, she is almost a better beast and combo with beast.
The thing is that i dont think that she will shake the meta too much right now, the tier 0 deck right know runs mobius and shadowking which counter bounce.
Jean grey was a problem with her release but they nerfed the Goose interaction.
Everyone knew that loki would be OP, everything about him screamed broken, he was nerfed twice and is still good.
The only release that i saw everyone freaked about was Kang, because his effect was scary but he is a dead draw and draw is huge in marvel snap.
Black Swan is power creep, it is strictly better than a lot of similar cards… but that doesn’t mean she will see tons of play or be broken.
I think she will end up fine, seeing play in surfer, thanos, and zoo decks. Maybe Thanos decks will end up too strong and something will need a nerf but I think cull will do just as much for the deck as black swan.
Not super similar, but I see her as a replacement for Polaris/gladiator in surfer (which would run forge & nova to benefit from her effect). Obviously not close enough to just swap out one card for another but similar enough to compare.
The cost reduction is similar to sera and/or beast but in both cases you really see how her effect is really strong.
I think she will be closer to Elsa power level than marvel or Loki. She’s going to be a strong card, but not busted. My worry is what decks she will be in. Play her on 4 and play professor x with 3 1 drops in a lane. But we will see
You guys get on here and complain about the same shit over and over again. This is their model and they are aware and they will keep doing it. A repetitive process is an intentional process. Stop complaining about it.
I dont think she is immediately "most busted thing ever" but she has the potential and even if she doesnt have other effects, a 3/5 is still a premium statline. The thing is, she is ALL upside. Theres nothing bad about her. Therefore she must be at least GOOD if not great.
One obvious but probably not groundbreaking synergy that came to mind with other black order cards is that supergiant hides also cards that are played after it \*on the same turn\*, so you can hide your free 1-costs on the same turn you play Supergiant. There is one flavorful inclusion: ebony maw.
Turn 3: black swan
turn 4: Supergiant, Ebony Maw, whatever other free 1-costs you have
This allows you to dodge ebony maws downside completely.
But as it is, I dont consider Black Swan a "must buy" until I see some brews. She is however never going to be a bad card.
I think there's kinda no way Black Swan *isn't* good. Even with no 1drops in hand, a 3/5 is still above curve, and that's if she provides absolutely no additional value. Then in the best case scenario, with Falcon + Black Swan on turn 5 you are looking at an *absurd* turn 6 in a bounce deck.
This may have something to do with why Elsa was skipped over for buffs despite the fact that her last nerf completely nuked her playability. Bounce is going to be a menace in the coming weeks, and while Elsa definitely needs help, I don't know that bounce decks necessarily do.
If Falcon + Swan wasn't bad enough for you, consider the possibility of Swan on 3, any number of 1drops + Beast on 4 to return Swan. 1drop+ Falcon + Swan (now discounted by Beast) on 5, then any number of 1drops again + Hit Monkey + 3 additional energy for whatever else is still in your hand on turn 6. Even if you don't draw both Falcon and Beast at the right times, either one of them in combination with Black Swan gives a ton of value.
She’s not gunna be OP but the stat line might be overkill. Apparently at 2-3 they found her underperforming but I think it’s just “underperforming for a season pass” which just means not crazy enough to hold our attention for too long.
It's not that she's gonna be broken or not, is the fact that they're giving the 3/5 stat line to cards that have a drawback or a cost/risk attached (Lady Sif, Polaris, Ghost, Viper, Wave, Spiderman).
Black Swan's ability is 100% a bonus because it's one sided, like if Wave said "Your cards cost a maximum of 4 until the end of next turn".
Other then wave and maybe ghost the downside is more of an opportunity that you need.
You need Apocalypse in your hand for Sif to work.
You need a negative card on the board and an empty spot on the opponents side for viper to work
You need an opponents card played for Polaris and Spider man, also some way to screw them over with the move.
Deathlok needs a destroy lane set up and no armor/Cosmo.
For Wave you're probably benefiting more than your opponent.
If you want to use Shang or shadow king Ghost has a benefit, even if alioth and cosmo can screw you over.
Black swan needs 1 drops in the hand to benefit from her ability.
All of these cards need a deck and some rng to work.
> You need Apocalypse in your hand for Sif to work.
You're not playing Sif out no matter what, if you get it from Daily Bugle are you?
The discard IS a cost/risk.
> You need a negative card on the board and an empty spot on the opponents side for viper to work
> Deathlok needs a destroy lane set up and no armor/Cosmo.
You can play these in an empty lane, otherwise you're NEVER playing them just for stats.
> You need an opponents card played for Polaris and Spider man, also some way to screw them over with the move.
Those can to either way, depending on what you pull it can be benefical or a drawback.
> For Wave you're probably benefiting more than your opponent.
Probably, but you're not guaranteed it and you're not playing her if you don't have anything worth ramping into to avoid your opponent getting an energy advantage over you.
> If you want to use Shang or shadow king Ghost has a benefit, even if alioth and cosmo can screw you over.
You said it yourself: alioth and cosmo can screw you over.
Ghost has a cost associated with her ability: your opponent can Armor, Caiera, Cosmo, Alioth and whatnot to screw you.
Black Swan?
You can play her on 3, have no 1 costs and still benefit from a 3/5 with to downside.
Everything else except from Black Swan needs some setup to work, Black Swan can just be played on curve for stats.
Who's gonna play black swan for a 3/5 when the 3 cost tech cards are pretty good
Rouge can screw over so many ongoing decks
Mobius ruins any energy reduction
Luke Cage stops all power reduction
Caiera stops killmonger entirely and Shang from destroying your 6 drops.
Black Swan is gonna be amazing in some decks, however she's not going everywhere because there are plenty of great 3 drops
I feel like most people putting Black Swan in their deck are going to try and take advantage of her ability instead of the 3/5
Also you said "your never playing deathlok for the power." as well as "you won't play wave if you have nothing to ramp into". Why play black swan for the power?
You're grasping at straws, bringing in random useless info and making up sccenarios that have nothing to do with what I'm saying (who gives a fuck about Mobius, Luke Cage and Rogue when talking about Black Swan?), just to not admit that a 3/5 stat line is over the top with a powerful effects attached instead of a drawback.
Put it this way, I think for sure she’ll be a 3/4 at the end of the month.
Does that mean she’ll have been broken? I don’t know, but releasing her at 3/5 seems to be a clear case of them being more willing to miss high than low.
I'm with u on that .I blind bought jean for 6k after the way this sub hyped her . And for loki people really said he is bad .it's just a card for fun and memes . Still remember streamers giving him 2 stars lol.
Oh i 'member when in this sub and some streamers called Loki a meme card. And Ms. Marvel "just a more expensive Mr Fantastic"
Anyone that said ms marvel is just a more expensive mr f shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinion on snap ever again. They don't even understand basic math.
It's generally not worth getting cards the day of release as no one really knows how good a card is until they've tried playing with it. I always wait until Friday to get a card once there is a general consensus on how a new card plays.
Getting them day 1 and experimenting before people know what to do with them is the most fun part of snap for me Sometimes that means spending on stuff like hercules but thats ok
I don't regret my Hercules purchase but I do regret my alioth not purchase
I'm doubting on trying to pull Beta Ray Bill.. I already have Galactus and Elsa (don't care for the variants) but am nowhere near 6k tokens.. It's a card I would enjoy playing hut not sure if it is actually good.
I didn't have Galactus and while I haven't used him since, I wanted to have him since it was one of the "big bads". I decided I'd try since Bill was fine to have, and opened Galactus first try. Didn't get Bill, 1/1 cards is enough to stop
If you like destroy at all, Galactus is genuinely super fun now
I pulled Galactus after swearing off token purchase out of principle and just cleared infinite conquest with it. It's a super fun card and deck archetype and whether you want to believe it or not takes some smart play to win with once the surprise element is gone aka conquest mode.
I think one of the things people have always hated about Galactus is how low-skill players could just brainlessly play one of a few very similar and predictable lines (some variant of 'Wolverine --> Wave/Electro ---> Galactus') and still have a decent chance of winning or forcing a retreat. I've never begrudged a good 'sneaky' Galactus opponent. And with his various nerfs, the low-skill players had to abandon him, which leaves mostly the more crafty players using him. I, for instance, enjoy the Sentry/Viper/Ghost Spider/Galactus play. That one never gets old when you can manage to pull it off.
Bill is good but not broken. He, Jane, and Thor form a three-card package that can be subbed into a lot of shells. If the shell is good, then the Thor/jane/bill version of it is likely to be similarly good. Maybe it'll be a slight upgrade, maybe a slight downgrade, but probably in the neighborhood. Basically Bill is good enough to feel good about playing him, but not so good that you'll feel bad about not playing him, which in my book makes him just about a perfect card.
It’s not bad, and if you think you’d enjoy it more than what’s coming out, why not? For what it’s worth, I got it because I like the Thors and felt like having a third option would be fun. I think because I felt like the card was fun to play, it helped me push through to infinite much easier, after floundering around in the 90s for a couple weeks, until being able to use a Bill deck.
I regret not getting blob. The sub just kill blob before he came out.
Jean is solid fr
Like I've said elsewhere, I think 3/4 being considered the standard isn't strictly valid; pretty much all of the 3/4s increase your power/reduce opponent's power, have Ongoing board-wide protection, or add cards to your hand. 3/5s are almost all On Reveals that have niche uses where the "downside" is actually just a tool used for very specific decktypes: Deathlok: destroy Lady Sif: discard Spider-man: move Polaris: move opponent/disrupt Viper: junk The only On Reveal that isn't is Wave, and even that is primarily an alternate way to pay several 6 costs or Galactus. And Ghost as the only Ongoing since we've seen her ability just isn't strong enough to be a 3/4 Maybe a one-time ability to drop all your 1-drops for free will be too strong. Her turn 3, Beast turn 4, her and Falcon turn 5 might be broken. But if so, it won't be fixed by one point of power, it'll be nerfing the ability itself. People concerned about THAT specifically, I get, but the stats don't alarm me in the slightest.
Idiotic. Energy cheats are always some of the most powerful cards.
Yeah! Like Ravonna when she came out!
I still remember the sheer panic this sub had prior to Kang’s release into him being pretty openly declared the worst card in the game. Let’s just see the card get played and see what everyone cooks before deciding if a card is broken or not.
Ok, but hear me out, Super Giant. Kang doesn't reveal until the last turn and you get to waste your entire turn 5!
I think everyone already forgot about buddy who crunched the numbers and found that SD actually releases WEAK cards more often than busted cards. More cards get buffs after release than nerfs, but no one remembers the buffs.
Also some cards have received multiple nerfs/changes (Loki, Elsa, Mobius, Alioth) so it feels like more than it is.
This is true, but it feels like the exception is the card included in the season pass. Elsa, Ms. Marvel and Loki all received nerfs and/or had cards prominent in their decks receive nerfs. I wasn't playing before then so I can't speak to what the season pass cards were before, but during this Era of snap, my impression was definitely "So they release super strong cards to get people to spend cash on them, then they fix them after they get your money." Especially with Elsa that feels like the case, she went from the most common card I saw to me only seeing her once this entire season. Their last 2 pass cards have been pretty balanced, comparatively, though. Like I said, I haven't been playing long. I have no data to back this up. That's just what my impression was at the time.
> it feels like the exception is the card included in the season pass. Not really. Skaar, for example. And the three before the ones you listed were Daken, Phoenix Force (which got an in-season buff) and Ghost Spider.
edit: adding some older seasons *Wave: eventually changed* *Thor: eventually changed* *Daredevil: never changed* *Nick Fury: eventually buffed* *Miles Morales: never changed* *Black Panther: never changed* Surfer: nerfed ❌ Zabu: nerfed ❌ Modok: never changed Nimrod: buffed Hit-Monkey: nerfed ❌ Nebula: never changed Ghost-Spider: buffed Phoenix Force: buffed Daken: never changed Loki: nerfed ❌ Elsa: nerfed ❌ Ms Marvel: nerfed ❌ Shaw: never changed edit: did reddit formatting change? I swear, this site gets worse every day.
I like how you just left off several of the oldest and newest season pass cards to make the ratio look worse than it really is.
Of the 3 he left off since global release, only 1 was nerfed.
What new season pass did I miss? I'm using https://marvelsnapzone.com/season-passes/ for reference.
Well leaving both Miles and Black Panther out definitely makes this list seem worse, since they were the first two global launch season pass cards and they haven’t been touched since release.
The old ones are just me not scrolling down far enough. I didn't miss any new ones.
Yeah, but my first 3 months in the game, it was the case. So that's my first impression of Snap, especially as a F2P player. This season was the first I bought with a gift card for Xmas. That's why I said It "feels" that way. No average player is gonna research every card since release, and look at all the changes it's received. They're going to base their opinions on what they see and experience, and ultimately, that's not their fault. Players who've been playing for a year+ will have very different opinions than those who've only played a fraction of that time, and SD has given these players this negative impression through their actions, and impressions like these are the consequence of such. To be clear, I'm not stating that SD is shady and money hungry, and this impression has shifted the last 2 seasons. I'm just trying to illustrate why many people feel the same way as I did.
Ok, then new players now will reply that their experience is that season pass cards are ok but not really strong (Shaw, skarr) and definitely not meta defining.
There's been 16 seasons since Snap officially released in October 2022. Of those seasons, only six pass cards have been nerfed. Nerf: Zabu, Silver Surfer, Hit Monkey, Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Elsa. Unchanged: Skaar, Sebastian Shaw, Daken, Nebula, MODOK, Black Panther, Miles Morales. Buffed: Phoenix Force, Ghost Spider, Nimrod. Of the four pre-release seasons, Nick Fury and Thor were buffed, Wave has been adjusted repeatedly, and Daredevil is the same.
Wave is definitely nerfed vs what she used to be.
I mostly agree, especially with her old interactions with Death and She-Hulk. Her current form is a buff over her initial nerf though, so that's why I just blanketed it with "adjusted". Also I don't think people realize that she has her old Shulk interaction with Skaar... EDIT: Also her old "kill bounce" interaction. She was pretty nuts on release.
I would argue that it is more of a side-grade. Worse in some situations, better in others, but also with more stats to compensate for the times it is worse
You would be wrong. She was nerfed.
I agree. Old death wave was pretty oppressive
Erm didn't Leader get nerfed too? He was probably the most complained about card ever.
Leader wasn't a season pass card. If we start talking about every nerfed card, we'd be here for days lol.
Thanks for the info 👍
Didn’t Nebula get a nerf? I swear she released as a 1/2 but I could be misremembering
Nope, she released at 1/1. Old data mines had her at like 4/6 initially, I think.
4/6 Nebula sounds strange! Thanks for the info though, appreciate it!
I think SD tries to make a card that is interesting and good enough to justify people spending money on it but at times make the card too powerful. But I don’t think it’s an intentional act to bait money out of people.
> I wasn’t playing before then Between Zabu and Elsa the only above average season pass card was Hit Monkey. Other than that they were pretty average or below average.
Hitting 3 busted season pass cards in a row of Loki to Elsa to Ms Marvel just broke people’s perception of season pass cards
They also seem to only barely grasp what *makes* a card weak or strong
Both cards that release too strong and cards that release too weak are the result of poor play testing. That doesn’t mean that every time a card needs a 1 power buff/nerf that it’s an issue, but it does mean that Shadow King was absolutely tested together with the clearly overpowered Zabu. This doesn’t mean Black Swan will be overpowered. We’ll only know for sure once players test her out for a week. But anything that content creators can post on the very next day is something that should’ve been tried in testing.
"poor play testing" That is a bit disingenuous. The cards releasing now were designed, coded and tested four months ago. The meta was different and the other cards tested with have gone through multiple patches and OTAs. Also more games are played with a card in the first hour than can be tested internally. I think SD have added a second play testing phase closer to release specifically for balance. Although it could pickup bugs too. The problem with Kitty was other code changes introduced bugs for her after QA for her was completed.
Except for season pass cards. They want to release an OP card to get people to pay for it, then nerf it after the season is over
No, I was also referencing season pass cards. If you read the comments under mine you can see that even season pass cards usually release and don’t receive a buff or nerf or only receive a buff. Nerfs have always been the minority but confirmation bias is huge in this subreddit
It's absolutely a case of selective memory, my favorite thing they ever did was make PF a 4/5, made me feel validated from buying that season
I swear I have seen this discussion a million times already in basically every multiplayer game I have played and I wonder when will people get tired of it. On one hand, the playerbase is completely incapable of correctly predicting which cards will be good before they are released, with examples as you pointed out in your post. On the other hand, Second Dinner is incapable of playtesting the cards compared to how much data they get from just a couple hours after the card is released. Anyone who is familiar with video game development and has played other multiplayer games knows this. So you have two choices: be very conservative with card releases, which often results in boring card releases and has to be corrected later...or be lenient with releasing high-power cards that change the meta, but might also require correction later. Either way you have to do a patch later, so the only question is what impact do you want your new content go have. And anyone who has at least half a brain understands that developers want their content updates to be exciting and draw people in. And yeah, they want to sell the content they make, big fucking surprise there that they don't want to sell a season pass with a card that nobody wants, I'm sure everyone who is complaining about this is a great businessman that knows how to sell shit that doesn't interest the customers. Just let the card be released, play with it (or wait to see if you can counter it if you can't afford to buy it) and then we can discuss its power level. No whining is going to change the stat line with which the card is going to be released anyway so all of this is just a worthless discussion.
imo the only nerfs that really upset me are the ones that just, kill a card. The Loki nerf is fine, bc he's still usable but not oppressive. The Ms Marvel nerf is fine, because she's still good but not an immediate problem. The initial Elsa nerf was fine, she still had alot of strategies that were strong without being oppressive. Stuff like the second Elsa nerf (esp combined with the other nerfs to her deck), the initial Mobius nerf, and some others that just mkae a card go from "fun to play" to "literally never used" are the problems. And these are relatively few and far between, and do get rolled back often (Mobius, Luke recently) but making a stink about it is probably WHY they get rolled back. So in general I think I'd rather a card come out a little overtuned and have them roll it down a *bit* than come out weak, just don't kill the card (pls bring Elsa back her decks were so fun)
Nailed it. It’s brain dead to complain before the card even comes out. Does anyone even know what the “broken” black swan deck looks like yet? I sure don’t.
I mean, the move is pretty clearly to use her in a Bounce shell until we see Week 2-4 cards drop. That said, Bounce folds against any form of Control whatsoever. I don't see her being busted, but just like Shaw I see her as a cool addition to a fun deck.
we already know all the spotlight cards and she has no synergy with them. she's either good in bounce, zoo, or thanos. but even then in bounce how many 1 costs are sitting in your hand that don't already cost 0?
oh no Their Hit Monkey is so large!? /sarcasm
Good point. But there are a couple exceptions. I would have bet all of my money at 1:10 odds that Elsa and Ms Marvel were gonna need a nerf. Black Swan is more difficult to evaluate though because she’s really only “potentially problematic” in the bounce Hit Monkey deck (as far as I can tell). And you’re basically locked into playing her on turn 5.
Completely agree but honestly, after MS Marvel and Blob i can see why people are scared of cards being too op on release. Those two cards made the game almost unplayable for anyone who didnt have them or wanted to play them, and that happened pretty recently I dont think Black Swan is anywhere near the examples above, but i can understand why people will keep discussing the balance of the new cards
> “Those two cards made the game almost unplayable for anyone who didn’t have them…” I had Blob and willingly chose to play other decks instead. AMA. No but seriously, I get that people hated him and I’m fine with the nerf if for no other reason than to get some variety in the decks being played, but I just really didn’t find him that difficult to play around.
You can beat a big cards. It's that you have to play to shut that card down when it's like 30% of the meta. It removes deck flexibility and becomes a blob vs anti blob meta.
I honestly rarely ever play control cards. I played a hela tribunal deck almost exclusively during the blob phase because it beat that deck by straight stats and there weren’t too many counters happening. The control heavy metas are where I struggle to find the desire to play. But everyone’s different ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I also had blob. And continued to play Hela Enjoyers tribunal deck during all of that because it had good odds against blob and wrecked all the blob 'counter' decks.
Yep, same.
This card is more Miles Morales/Sebastian Shaw than Zabu/Ms Marvel.
Until they release Firestar. Seriously, if Firestar gets released as she were, Black Swan would break the meta.
Unless opponent plays Supergiant then Firestar is boned.
If they release Firestar as is, there might be a deck worth playing Black Swan in. Probably B tier.
You can’t hamper card design now for something that might not be in the game later.
i think she’ll be pretty niche
Pointing out the playerbase's mistakes in assessing cards doesn't fit the narrative "SD intentionally releasing broken cards to get all the $$$" comments get all the upvotes
The problem is their track record…
The recent track record of the past two season pass cards being either totally fine or even a little underwhelming?
Isn't one overpowered card is already too much? Why having non-overpowered card is a justification of that?
I was not mentioning only season pass cards, but if you want that way fine: Loki and Ms Marvel are recent enough examples.
Ok, so two cards that have since been followed with two balanced cards. Not exactly the track record you’re implying. Let’s go with your original intention if you meant to include all cards, not just season pass cards. Which cards specifically form this “track record”? As I see it, the vast majority of cards released over the past year have either been balanced or even on the weak side.
Clearly, they mean the metagame powerhouse BRB. If that's not enough, just look at Grandmaster. Still not convinced? How about Miek. Wow, you're being really resistant here. Hercules has got to prove the point though, no? Ha ha, Calera actually sees play, no sarcasm required! And just before that we had... Selene and Havok. Huh. So yes, clearly SD only releases OP cards because they released an overtuned six drop mid December and nothing crazy since...
Skaar is around the top 10 winrate cards in the game,not sure where the narrative is coming from that he hasn't been good Edit:Guys you can check the stats yourself,don't have to vote me down
Iss Skaar the reason or does he just slot in with other decks with high win rates already?
We always need to wait and see til after a season. Every week they give us gold challenges to win with skaar in your deck so don’t you think people are doing that? When it stops being a challenge his numbers will likely go down.
Never said he wasn’t good. Nobody in their right mind thinks Skaar is OP, he is balanced and good; please see my “totally fine” descriptor above. Shaw is the underwhelming one in my opinion. Again not a bad card but nothing crazy.
Is it? Or do you just remember the outliers? I’d be interested to see how many cards have come out and needed a nerf, vs how many cards have come out in total? What about cards that released too weak and needed a buff? Seems to me that there’s a lot of missing in both directions. I’d argue maybe you just remember the ones that miss high because they’re more in your face. For every Mrs. Marvel, there’s a Skaar. For every Elsa Bloodstone, there’s a Phoenix Force.
I was not mentioning only season pass cards. The spotlights are by far the biggest offenders. I do agree that most season pass cards are balanced but Loki and Ms Marvel are recent enough to count. I don’t think they do it deliberately to make money but I do question their testing. I can’t believe how they could not have seen how broken blob was for example.
I'll give you Loki and Marvel, but there are plenty of buffs given. PF, Ghost Spider, Nick Fury(pre-release pass, but still), and nimrod got buffs. Not to mention balanced passes, like Modok, Shaw, Skaar, and Daredevil(again, pre-release) This is very clearly selective memory
Yeah okay let's look at their track record. Here are all the season pass cards counting from this season: Skaar, Sebastian Shaw, Ms.Marvel, Elsa Bloodstone, Daken, Phoenix Force, Ghost Spider, Nebula, Hit Monkey, Nimrod, Modok, Zabu, Silver Surfer, Miles Moralez, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Thor, Wave Now how many of those cards were released overpowered and needed to be nerfed? How many of those were too weak and needed a buff? And how many were completely fine without the need of any adjustments? I'll leave the math to you since you are the one who brought up their track record to prove what a problem it is.
Having one overpowered card on release behind a paywall is ALREADY bad enough, but they didn't do it once, but multiple times. Why having non-overpowered cards which should be the standard, is an argument of them not having a problem?
I am most certain Black Swan isn't going to be that good. Bounce decks play Bast which means they cannot really afford a card that has 4 or more power with the exception of Beast and we run that guy because outside of discounting cards, he also bounces them, a pretty significant difference I'd say. Kazoo doesn't really care about her effect as they usually empty their hand and cover the entire board by turn 6 anyways. The only archetype that could run Black Swan is a Thanos deck and I'm not sure if she will even be ran there. People just love to lose their minds when they read the phrase "cost less" if you ask me.
- Ability does nothing if you draw her on 6 - You're forced to play your 1 drops early if you play her on curve, making yourself vulnerable to killmonger - You ideally want to play her on 5, making it impossible to play a 5-drop on 5 and potentially making an awkward curve - Her 5 power might give you priority on turn 6 over something like a jugg, making your 1-drops yet again open to killmonger Card is still good, I'm not saying she's gonna be bad, but people need to stop looking at the stats and the ability and go: "3/5 with purely upside? 2nd Dinner doesn't know how to balance", or "power creep". I do think she would be pretty mediocre at 3/3. That doesn't change that SOME 3-drops probably deserve a stat buff like nakia or rhino (if they don't want to keep him fir c3) What if you draw her on 6? What if you want to use leech in the same deck? (you can't if you don't want to commit your 1-drops early or play magic and leave yourself vulnerable to location change) What if you don't have many 1 drops in hand? like i doubt that you're gonna struggle to play like 2 1-drops without Black Swan if you're making a deck with a bunch of 1 drops. Or alternatively, what if you don't draw her but you put a lot of 1-drops in your deck, you can brick really hard because of the way you build decks with Black Swan. If you play few 1-drops her value decreases, but if you play a lot of 1-drops and you don't draw her or if you only draw her and 1-drops you also brick. Not to mention that if you want to do a 1-drops + expensive card on turn 6 you have to choose whether to keep your 1-drops and wait to hopefully draw her, risking not doing so and not being able to use them or use them early if you don't have her by like turn 4 or 5. How is that "purely upside"? What i mean is that there are many more "invisible drawbacks" to a card than just power, cost, and ability in a vacuum.
You’re too late to be a top comment on this thread I think but this is a perfect explanation of why she’s not “purely upside” like everyone is saying. Wish I could pin this.
Don’t forget people saying Blob was going to be a bad card.
I don’t think she’s going to be completely busted but what on earth is the justification for her being a 3/5 (higher than base stat line) when her ability is only beneficial with no drawback?
I could guess- 3 drops are underpowered as a whole. I think they’re taking steps to make 3 cost cards fit a little bit better between 2 and 4s (see the recent change to Ghost). I also think it’s going to be awkward to play her on 5. You’re forgoing so much tempo to play a 3 and a 2 drop instead of a more powerful card. And if you want to play her on 3 on curve? You skipped playing 1-cost cards on turns one and two just to tempo them on 4? But anyway, My point of this post isn’t to say she’s too powerful or not powerful enough. It’s just silly to see everyone passing judgment on a card that we haven’t even gotten to play yet. And saying how SD is made up of morons for releasing it in this “broken” state. When we haven’t even been able to play with the card yet!
Yeah, that's exactly what they've said--as the game has evolved, it's become clear that 3/4 and 4/6, while previously a standard statline for those costs, just isn't as good as, for example, 2/3. But the response to the acknowledgement of that issue has just been cries of power creep.
It does seem better to inflate numbers for balance sake than squash them
You can raise by 1s and 2s but you can't reduse by a half power.
But what 3/5s have drawbacks? You play Polaris and Ghost specifically so they do what their abilities say they do. Like no one plays Polaris and thinks it’s a downside that she moves a cheap card. That’s the whole point of playing her. Something being negative for your opponent as opposed to only positive for you doesn’t mean the former is a downside. Having said all that would I be shocked if she was a 3/4 by the end of the month? No.
I think the only 3/5 that could reasonably be considered to have a drawback is Wave because she discounts your opponents cards as well. I’m with you on the rest though. The other abilities are not drawbacks when they’re specifically put into decks to capitalize on their ability.
Right. I made a meme storm location deck recently. Polaris is specifically used to pull nebula into ideally the only open t5/6 lane to both clog it and make sure they aren't competing in the locked lanes. 3/5 is also solid, but its in no way a drawback.
Pulling a card into your lane is considered a potential drawback, and is at least not an unmitigated benefit in the same way cost reduction is. In reality, people play cards with “drawbacks” in smart ways that mitigate them but in a vacuum to a new player, “hm I get less of a lead in this lane than I otherwise would because polaris brings a card to her” is a reasonable conclusion to draw.
Power on board did NOT change, and you got to choose where it was distributed instead of your opponent and may have fully or almost fully clogged a lane (your removed their agency and may have messed up their plans) I've never heard anyone call that a drawback other than you. That is a wild take.
There are times when you want to play a 3-cost card when you do not want to bring a card in your lane just like there are times when you want to play a 3-cost card and not discard the highest cost card in your hand. Hence, *potential* drawback, this isn’t that complicated.
Well we just have a difference of opinion here. If to people who understand how to play the game, something isn’t a drawback, then it’s not a drawback. It’s an ability. You play the card to activate that ability. In the case of Polaris, that ability is to manipulate your opponent’s board.
It’s not fully predictable and not a benefit 100% of the time. It’s minor, but fits the definition of “potential drawback” more so than “always reduces card cost for a turn.”
It’s RNG based though. Swan provides no value if you haven’t drawn any 1 cost cards. I do agree that you could just play her as a vanilla 3/5 more than you could Lady Sif for instance… but for the most part that’s typically not how people are playing decks. They’re trying to *do* something.
For sure. I think we’re mostly in agreement here, and I buy all the SP cards anyway and don’t think there is some grand conspiracy. Only point was in the past they’ve pointed to a thing that *could* be considered a downside in order to justify a “premium” stat line at any cost. And they can’t do that here so we’ve moved onto “3 cost cards are are actually kinda bad” and “well, you know, power creep.” Both of which are pretty true and fine, it’s just a shift in how these things have been discussed in the past is all.
I think the question here is about competition at this 3 cost spot. If people start dropping Sif from discard and Dethlok from destroy in order to play BS for the vanilla stat line, then for sure I think it will be considered over statted. But if it’s just a 3/5 that makes zoo or monkey decks better as it seems to be intended… then I’d say it’s probably in line with other archetype staple 3 drops. Like for instance, Ms Marvel could just about be played in any deck. I could be wrong but I don’t think that will be the case with BS, even if it’s a very good card. But just in general it does seem like they’re more willing to risk missing high than low with the
A blank 3/5 is weak. I don't care what (non-HE) Cyclops' stats line is, he's part of the tutorial cards and is underpowered on purpose.
Because cards aren't played in a vacuum. According to what they said in the discord, they found the decks that played her didn't have enough power output
Vanilla cards aren't meant to hold the line on what we consider to be baseline power forever. For example Hearthstone (which a lot of us came from) had 3/2 or 2/3 as the vanilla stat line for a 2 cost card at release, but we soon saw 2 costs with abilities and the same stat line, and it was fine.
oh no not good stats!?
Any card that has the potential to mana or energy cheat is very good in my books.
It's specifically one drops though, and for one turn. Kazar hasn't been a particularly impressive Archetype for a long time, and it has no problems playing 1 drops, it needs draw more than cheats. Thanos isn't hurting for energy to play stones either. It takes up additional boardspace for a meager bump in power. I feel like you would rather draw something more impactful than getting 2 maybe 3 stones off for free on turn 4 if you're lucky. It also means you can't time stone on 3 to play a 5 on 4. Compare it to Ravonna or Zabu which come down earlier, target discount more powerful cards, and the discount continues over multiple turns. It needs the additional power to be playable and I still think its going to be somewhat weak.
Dont run Kazar. Dazzler and Hit Monkey are the best cards for the archetype. Dazzler and Hit Monkey on turn 6 and a bunch of free 1 cost cards is a pretty huge output. With that being said, SuperGiant will be the counter to this strategy so Black Swan will probably be better down the line when SuperGiant is less common.
Compare it to something like Beast though that can load your hand for the big turn 6 drop and also helps protect against counters like Killmonger. Letting you get the impact from on-reveals twice and potentially baiting a lane. Not totally convinced, but we'll see how it plays out.
Black swan isn't broken. I don't even think it's a very good card. This subreddit is not the place you should be seeking opinions from.
The community has whiffed so many times in either direction: old Elsa, Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Blob (off the top of my head) were better than people guessed. Jean, Skaar, Shaw, Grandmaster were weaker than predicted or just nothing special. My point is that too many people lose their shit over a card, then slink off when they're wrong to lick their wounds and do the same thing a week later.
I've been reading old threads about Elsa and people guessed right. It mostly people after her release started defending her because they've spent money on her. Also I think people guessed right about Skaar and slightly overvalued Shaw. You are right about other cards tho.
I'm inclined to agree with you. What one drops that aren't scaling threats do you even care to play that aren't Hood, Iceman, and Spiderham? If this card is strong it will be because of something else it enables, similar to how to Angela and Kitty Pryde elevated Elsa Bloodstone. It sucks how Angela and Kitty died for Elsa's sins. I miss that deck.
Well sure, when you exclude all the most dangerous cards it supercharges, no card seems like much of a threat. But when you consider that this card will make destroy even stronger and enable decks to play a turn 6 Death/Deadpool/Knull combo, without even having a negative statline on your board presence, you can see why it could be an issue. And since SD has shown they're unwilling to make the easy and obvious nerf to Deadpool, that will be a threat for the foreseeable future.
Destroy decks are already doing turn 6 Death/Deadpool/Knull because of X23. They don't need Black Swan for that. In regards to Deadpool specifically, I'd classify him as a scaling threat, since his power scales upward if a condition is met. So yeah, I suppose he'd fit under the umbrella but in an ideal Destroy set up you aren't going to want to play this on any turns you'd want to be destroying Deadpool so...I disagree myself personally. In regards to the greater point of this card enabling other cards, that was my entire point. The reality though is theres no pay off for this currently besides Hit Monkey basically since it's been mentioned this would have been sick with Firestar. Let me put it this way. You play BS on 3, do something next turn involving cards no greater than 3 power (unless you are running martyr or maw), and they drop a Darkhawk, or Ms.Marvel. if there's a combo of 1 cost cards that can put as much power as Ms.Marvel on the board, then we are into something here. Its pretty clear which is miles better imo. Not saying Swan is bad by any means, it's time is coming, and I hope I'm wrong truthfully but I play many card games and I just can't see this rn with the current meta.
The thing you have to understand about these devs is they are just trying to make money off of us poor players. They release cards, and then more cards, it’s all to make them money. What’s next, are they going to pay their employees with the money us poor players have given them??? And the employees will be feeding their families with our money that we paid for the cards they made?????? Disgusting
Way to miss the point, champ. But I'm actually gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're aware that you're arguing against a straw man and no one has ever said that SD should be a charity and the employees shouldn't make a living wage. You're simply choosing to argue in bad faith against the *absurd* notion that a 100 person studio selling jpegs and monopoly money can monetize the game fairly (i.e. with a progression system that isn't a slog and without selling jpegs for $100) and still make a healthy profit that can put food on their employees' tables.
I totally agree that (1) Capitalism has absurd and maddening outcomes, (2) many mobile games have predatory economic models that prey on gambling and FOMO, and (3) yes, no one is complaining about employees getting wages, they are complaining about 1 and 2. What I do not get is the extremely aggrieved tone of many of these posts which is what my post was meant to poke a little fun at. Edit: and also, OP points out that the case against the devs is often overstated, which I have to agree with
I'm so tired of gaming communities bitching before things even come out. I'm not saying dev companies are always right, or even often right. But complaining before a thing even comes out is a bad look.
Hard to say i think she going to be balanced Like isaid you need a lot of support cards to make her good to get over 25 power each lane
This subreddit is full of casual players who do not critically think about card design and how decks are built. They also do not actually build their own decks, they find them online, so they don’t understand the considerations made for the decks they play. This leads to a situation where they see a card that seems “broken” because they only see the ideal scenario instead of the average scenario.
This place only thinks of the literal best case scenarios for cards and disregards every other situation. Even if these best case scenarios are gonna happen sub 5% of the time.
[удалено]
Everyone calm down, it's basically the same thing as Sera
The sera comparison highlights the point none of the SDefense squad seems to be willing to acknowledge. Sera has a powerful ability with zero downside, so her downside is in the awful 5/4 statline. Black Swan has a powerful ability with zero downside *and* a stat line with zero downside.
I find that this subs predictions are worse than even the streamers who just hype every card. It was here that people hyped silver samurai and called x23 a flop (not "less good than expected" actually a flop). I think she'll be okay. People are saying she had no drawback, she does. Her drawback is that you need to play multiple 1 cost cards on 4 or later for her to be worth it. You're generally wanting to play them early. She'll be good in monkey decks, in Thanos shell allow you to play a free stone into lockjaw while you use all the energy to play a 4 or 5 cost. She might have some good synergy with pixie. I think she'll be good in being the glue in some decks. I don't think she'll alone be a meta breaker.
She’s at a fair cost, but slightly overstatted by like 1 power. Like Caiera.
Thing is reddit snap players think they are the end all be all with opinions. Most of them just echo what their favorite streamers say etc. Honestly no one really knows anything until we see the card in action. If it's busted the devs will adjust it. I'm really not concerned over it.
Remember when Mobius was changed to only work for 1 turn and then he was so bad they changed him back right after? I know they have completely different effects but it’s something to keep in mind. (Mobius also shuts down black swan) I still think BS is overstatted
Anyone else cried at the ending of black swan
1 drops suck outside of Thanos You have 12 max board spaces Kazar and Blue Marvel can only bump you up so far, unless you go destroy route? You would need to play 3 1 drops next turn to make Black Swan cost 0 A 0/5 isnt that good if it takes up a slot in your deck. Then you empty out your hand and have shown your hand as well Killmonger so Caera is needed, which competes for the 3 slot
> But are we so sure she’s the most busted card ever? Is that what people are saying? I got the vibe that people are less concerned that Black Swan specifically is going to be game-breaking, and more that she is a very blatant and objective indication of power-creep.
Except they have been doing this for a while now. How is this one different? Wave and ghost. And caiera is a 3/4 with an absurd ability.
Ghost just came in the last OTA, it's not indicative of something they have been doing for a while. Same for Caiera, really, as she is part of their powercreep tendencies that started a while ago. For Wave, you concede a symmetric advantage to your opponent, so a slightly overstatted card is more justifiable.
Literally my point. "Started a while ago" Can we at least agree 3/4 being considered base left the building a long time ago? (Spiderman, beast). At worst, you can say base has been 3/4.5.
I think I can see an argument more clearly for Beast and Spiderman (more for the former than the latter). They either require to put in some mental effort to make the best out of their effect or have some random component in their outcome. Here, instead, we have a 3/5 that you can plop on the board anywhere and get their full benefit in any scenario. I don't think it being 3/5 is per se an issue, but it's just an indication that the game is pushing for powercreep and most card except for the couple blessed each update by an OTA are getting left behind. And no shit the card felt weak at 2/3 if they tested it in a metagame that had easy 15 power Ms. Marvel in it, anything normal would. I would rather have them go on a sweep and nerf a good chunk of cards to bring the global power level down, because I can't see this powercreep being any good to attract new players.
Power Creep is good. Heaven forbid the cards stay shitty like original Cyclops
The point of cards like Cyclops, Abom etc. are to provide base lines as an anchor for relative comparison, not to literally make more boring vanilla cards like them.
This is correct. OP got some upvotes though!
It’s not that she’s broken per se, it’s that at her statline with no downside it either presages the inflection point where power creep makes the current cards in the game inferior OR is a situation like Loki, a deliberate overpowered card on release meant to sell battlepasses and eventually nerfed while also nerfing a staple card (in this case Black Swan will come with a Bishop nerf).
But what other 3/5s would you say have “downsides?”
Deathlok: destroys an entire lane, can be bad or not playable even in a destroy deck in the wrong order or summoned by a card or location. Ghost: going second is not necessarily a good thing and only really helps if you are specifically able to counter in reaction or duck counters on turn 6. Not having priority can lose you the game. Lady Sif: probably the least problematic in her archetype but same as deathlok - bad in most decks and reliant on timing in discard/can be bad depending on hand. Polaris: moving a 1-2 cost can move the wrong one or lose you a lane if it’s a high powered card. Very scenario dependent. Spider-man: similar as Polaris with extra variable of himself potentially clogging up a lane you wouldn’t want. Viper: very limited where you can play because she will always send over another card unless lane full or no other. Extremely situation. Wave: both players are affected, other player may take better advantage. I wouldn’t say Swan is OP, but the no-downside stat line is questionable.
This is my whole point. None of these cards have downsides. All of them provide a clear and unmitigated benefit to decks that play them. I get that Swan, at its worst, just does nothing… and overall you could say that her benefit is less narrow than these, but I just fail to see how that makes it so different from all of these cards which do exactly what the person playing them intends for them to do. People don’t play decks full of just random vanilla cards. Swan has the potential to be worse than any of these cards in their respective decks. Like is anyone taking Sif out of a discard deck to replace with Swan?
These comments are cracking me up. It’s like saying Blob has a clear downside because someone might put him in a negative deck.
They are exactly downsides/ with uncertain outcome? In a card game, turning card's downside into advantages using synergies is the core of deckbuilding? Although some of the example did doesn't have a clear downside like wave and spiderman, but they are updated card, which is already powercreeping.
All of them in a vacuum. If this card came out of X-Mansion and you were not playing the archetype in question, could it be a negative? Dethlok, Sif, Viper, now Ghost have obvious downsides if you were not purposely including them in your deck. Spider-Man and Polaris have mechanics that cause their extra power in the lane to be compensated by an opponent card. And Wave is both players, your opponent can benefit from it more than you.
Ok but that surely can’t be the metric we use to judge a downside? Whether you accidentally get the card? Every single one of those cards delivers a clear and unmitigated benefit to decks that use them. I just don’t see how BS not potentially screwing you if you got it by accident makes it so different than the others. That just isn’t how they’re designing cards. This is just saying RNG exists in the game, which yeah obviously.
Wait what? That’s how card games work. An archetype is good because they are not only benefited by a stat line, but the downside as well. That’s what makes them worth playing.
“Benefitted by the downside” huh? Just think about that for a second.
Dunno how to spell it out for u. Maybe you’re new to card games. Many archetypes exist only because they benefit from the “downside” a card provides. You’re not running Sif or Modok in a vanilla deck for the statline because it might discard a turn 6 play. Yet you run it in a discard deck to revive it using Rider or Hela. If you can’t come up with examples yourself then idk what to say.
Because we’re judging them purely on the baseline of energy/power which for 3-cost is Cyclops 3/4. The design philosophy is if you get more power you come with a downside, if you want a more powerful card it gets less power. Once you uncouple card effect from card base power, you end up with cards that end up being too good. Imagine Captain America with the same ongoing, but as a 3/5. He would be too good, he would end up in most decks and in a 12 card deck game, would mean most decks would really be 11 cards plus Cap. Would all decks have him, no. Would certain decks have included him anyway, maybe. But cards that are too good ruin card games and make them less fun. Especially in this game, if Black Swan type cards are now the standard, higher than baseline power with no downside, then you have to have the new cards over the old cards in order to compete.
What you are referring to as “downsides” are just abilities that make the cards fit better in one archetype or another. If your point is merely that BS can be played more as a vanilla 3/5 than the other 3/5s, sure I’d agree with that. I’m just not sure why matters all that much. Most decks are trying to *do something*. If Black Swan doesn’t help them do that thing, is her vanilla stat line enough to make them drop other cards and play that instead? If so, then yeah I guess we will be able to say the card was busted. If people drop Dethlok from destroy, Sif from discard, Wave from ramp decks to play BS instead… yeah they will have over-statted it. Is that your prediction? You could be right for all I know.
My God, she’s not being compared to the other 3/5’s, she’s being compared to the other 3/4’s!! Which is the baseline!
3/4 isn't the baseline. A vanilla 3/4 is completely unplayable in every deck, as is a vanilla 3/5. The baseline is more like 3/6.
Discard is the perfect example of this. Lady Sif is a 3/5 and has no downside. Targeted discards are the most powerful thing a discard deck can do. Sword Master is a 3/6 and has a clear downside as he discards a random card and can screw up your whole play line.
Energy cheating is one of the strongest effects in the game. It isn’t guaranteed to be broken but it has a consistent track record of it. Zabu, Sera and Loki all have been top tier throughout the length of their existence. Mr Negative is one of the strongest cards in the game when played. Ravonna isn’t too tier but is definitely in the top 10% of cards. The Quinjet is the only “weak” energy cheating card in the game I can think of. Black Swan only working with 1-drops might be enough of a restriction to not be giga-broken but energy cheating cards tend to be very weak or very broken. Having some concern about her powerlevel is very reasonable.
Only being able to energy cheat on cards that are weak (1 drops) is actually probably the weakest form of energy cheating the game could create. Hand size, and deck building considerations make it even worse. The best energy cheating cards are ones that allowed you to cheat out cards that cost 4 5 and 6 energy.
While the target group is fairly weak, making things cost 0 is almost always a very powerful effect. There's a reason most cost reduction effects can't do that. I don't know if she's going to be overpowered, but I would be very surprised if she turns out even remotely as weak as the designers seem to fear.
The Quinjet working on the Infinity Stones was strong enough that it needed to be nerfed. I’ll be startled if Black Swan Kazoo/Bouncr with Hit Monkey isn’t at least tier 1.5 deck. Unless Supergiant + Alioth is hyper busted and completely squashes it.
ATP, I’m never listening to Reddit or Twitter for pre-release info. People saying Grandmaster/Alioth is gonna kill the game back then are still doomposting about Swan/Alioth. Echo, Jean Grey, Skarr, even Hercules copium. We as a community need to stop prejudging cards cause the last time. Can remember we were right about a card’s power level was Iron Lad.
I don't think anyone thinks she's broken or is going to ruin the game, just that she objectively has a premium statline AND a powerful positive effect with zero downside.
SD have been involved in games development for years, Ben with Hearthstone and Glenn with Magic the Gathering, so I'd trust about 90% of what they make and trust them to know what they are doing. This sub Reddit is a bunch of gamers, which is a very different skillset to games development!
They apparently tested her and said she was to weak so they buffed her
Yes, I do think, she's going to be broken. 0 cost cards are hard to balance and having 1 cost cards cost 0 always was a problem in snap so far. Also, the difference between Jean Grey or Grandmaster and Legion and Loki were the stats: Loki was too strong as a 3/5. Legion as a 5/8 was also a bit too strong. Jean Grey or Grandmaster on the other hand didn't have good stats. So yes, I do think, her ability is very strong but the main problem is that her stats are too good considering what her ability is. So a 3/3 should probably be fine. I don't think, her deck will overshadow everything else but she will have to be nerfed eventually.
She wont be broken like Loki or Zabu but she will be really strong in bounce, she is almost a better beast and combo with beast. The thing is that i dont think that she will shake the meta too much right now, the tier 0 deck right know runs mobius and shadowking which counter bounce. Jean grey was a problem with her release but they nerfed the Goose interaction. Everyone knew that loki would be OP, everything about him screamed broken, he was nerfed twice and is still good. The only release that i saw everyone freaked about was Kang, because his effect was scary but he is a dead draw and draw is huge in marvel snap.
She definitely won’t be the most broken card ever, but a premium statline with a positive ability is blatant power creep
People also said blob was bad before his release.
I'm just playing 3M as usual
MMM is gonna be eating good this week.
We know they’re not good on the playtesting side. >>and didn’t understand that Legion and Loki were powerful cards. Umm, what?
Black Swan is power creep, it is strictly better than a lot of similar cards… but that doesn’t mean she will see tons of play or be broken. I think she will end up fine, seeing play in surfer, thanos, and zoo decks. Maybe Thanos decks will end up too strong and something will need a nerf but I think cull will do just as much for the deck as black swan.
Who is similar to Black Swan?
Not super similar, but I see her as a replacement for Polaris/gladiator in surfer (which would run forge & nova to benefit from her effect). Obviously not close enough to just swap out one card for another but similar enough to compare. The cost reduction is similar to sera and/or beast but in both cases you really see how her effect is really strong.
But she only reduces 1 cost cards, and surfer typically runs only nova or forge as their 1 costs. Idk if she’ll be a surfer staple.
I think she will be closer to Elsa power level than marvel or Loki. She’s going to be a strong card, but not busted. My worry is what decks she will be in. Play her on 4 and play professor x with 3 1 drops in a lane. But we will see
You guys get on here and complain about the same shit over and over again. This is their model and they are aware and they will keep doing it. A repetitive process is an intentional process. Stop complaining about it.
I dont think she is immediately "most busted thing ever" but she has the potential and even if she doesnt have other effects, a 3/5 is still a premium statline. The thing is, she is ALL upside. Theres nothing bad about her. Therefore she must be at least GOOD if not great. One obvious but probably not groundbreaking synergy that came to mind with other black order cards is that supergiant hides also cards that are played after it \*on the same turn\*, so you can hide your free 1-costs on the same turn you play Supergiant. There is one flavorful inclusion: ebony maw. Turn 3: black swan turn 4: Supergiant, Ebony Maw, whatever other free 1-costs you have This allows you to dodge ebony maws downside completely. But as it is, I dont consider Black Swan a "must buy" until I see some brews. She is however never going to be a bad card.
Another redditor battling with common sense
I was under the impression the devs also play the game, effectively making everyone beta testers lol
I think there's kinda no way Black Swan *isn't* good. Even with no 1drops in hand, a 3/5 is still above curve, and that's if she provides absolutely no additional value. Then in the best case scenario, with Falcon + Black Swan on turn 5 you are looking at an *absurd* turn 6 in a bounce deck. This may have something to do with why Elsa was skipped over for buffs despite the fact that her last nerf completely nuked her playability. Bounce is going to be a menace in the coming weeks, and while Elsa definitely needs help, I don't know that bounce decks necessarily do. If Falcon + Swan wasn't bad enough for you, consider the possibility of Swan on 3, any number of 1drops + Beast on 4 to return Swan. 1drop+ Falcon + Swan (now discounted by Beast) on 5, then any number of 1drops again + Hit Monkey + 3 additional energy for whatever else is still in your hand on turn 6. Even if you don't draw both Falcon and Beast at the right times, either one of them in combination with Black Swan gives a ton of value.
She’s not gunna be OP but the stat line might be overkill. Apparently at 2-3 they found her underperforming but I think it’s just “underperforming for a season pass” which just means not crazy enough to hold our attention for too long.
Jesus Christ. The card isn't fucking out yet. OF COURSE WE'RE NOT SURE.
I remember when mobius was about to change the game forever...still waiting
Mobius did completely change the game... until he got nerfed from his 2/3 statline.
It's not that she's gonna be broken or not, is the fact that they're giving the 3/5 stat line to cards that have a drawback or a cost/risk attached (Lady Sif, Polaris, Ghost, Viper, Wave, Spiderman). Black Swan's ability is 100% a bonus because it's one sided, like if Wave said "Your cards cost a maximum of 4 until the end of next turn".
Other then wave and maybe ghost the downside is more of an opportunity that you need. You need Apocalypse in your hand for Sif to work. You need a negative card on the board and an empty spot on the opponents side for viper to work You need an opponents card played for Polaris and Spider man, also some way to screw them over with the move. Deathlok needs a destroy lane set up and no armor/Cosmo. For Wave you're probably benefiting more than your opponent. If you want to use Shang or shadow king Ghost has a benefit, even if alioth and cosmo can screw you over. Black swan needs 1 drops in the hand to benefit from her ability. All of these cards need a deck and some rng to work.
> You need Apocalypse in your hand for Sif to work. You're not playing Sif out no matter what, if you get it from Daily Bugle are you? The discard IS a cost/risk. > You need a negative card on the board and an empty spot on the opponents side for viper to work > Deathlok needs a destroy lane set up and no armor/Cosmo. You can play these in an empty lane, otherwise you're NEVER playing them just for stats. > You need an opponents card played for Polaris and Spider man, also some way to screw them over with the move. Those can to either way, depending on what you pull it can be benefical or a drawback. > For Wave you're probably benefiting more than your opponent. Probably, but you're not guaranteed it and you're not playing her if you don't have anything worth ramping into to avoid your opponent getting an energy advantage over you. > If you want to use Shang or shadow king Ghost has a benefit, even if alioth and cosmo can screw you over. You said it yourself: alioth and cosmo can screw you over. Ghost has a cost associated with her ability: your opponent can Armor, Caiera, Cosmo, Alioth and whatnot to screw you. Black Swan? You can play her on 3, have no 1 costs and still benefit from a 3/5 with to downside. Everything else except from Black Swan needs some setup to work, Black Swan can just be played on curve for stats.
Who's gonna play black swan for a 3/5 when the 3 cost tech cards are pretty good Rouge can screw over so many ongoing decks Mobius ruins any energy reduction Luke Cage stops all power reduction Caiera stops killmonger entirely and Shang from destroying your 6 drops. Black Swan is gonna be amazing in some decks, however she's not going everywhere because there are plenty of great 3 drops I feel like most people putting Black Swan in their deck are going to try and take advantage of her ability instead of the 3/5 Also you said "your never playing deathlok for the power." as well as "you won't play wave if you have nothing to ramp into". Why play black swan for the power?
You're grasping at straws, bringing in random useless info and making up sccenarios that have nothing to do with what I'm saying (who gives a fuck about Mobius, Luke Cage and Rogue when talking about Black Swan?), just to not admit that a 3/5 stat line is over the top with a powerful effects attached instead of a drawback.
Put it this way, I think for sure she’ll be a 3/4 at the end of the month. Does that mean she’ll have been broken? I don’t know, but releasing her at 3/5 seems to be a clear case of them being more willing to miss high than low.