Marvel Snap’s latest patch features one potentially game-breaking buff to a very powerful card

Marvel Snap’s new update went live this afternoon, and it features some card balancing changes that could have an immediate effect on ladder play.

The big purple Infinity Gauntlet-wielding titan himself, Thanos, received a pretty substantial buff. The end=game card only available in Series Five got a big bump in his power from eight to 11.

“We think Thanos is one of the coolest cards, and we’re a bit sad that he himself isn’t played often,” Second Dinner said. “Most Thanos decks focus primarily on making good use of the stones, but we want to make sure the mad titan himself has enough Power to play.”

Thanos is one of the most popular decks to run at very high ranks. Combining him and his Infinity Stones with Lockjaw creates an incredibly powerful deck that is hard to counter. And now, his own power just got even higher.

The second-biggest change in card balancing was to Darkhawk, “an especially powerful card,” according to the developer, who now sports zero power to go along with his four energy cost.

“As we prepared this balance change before the Silver Surfer and Zabu nerfs went live, we didn’t want to hit him too hard,” Second Dinner said. “However, we definitely felt that knocking off at least one Power from him is warranted, and we will continue to monitor his performance.”

The final major change was to Sandman, a card that hasn’t had much usage. He got a big bump from a four energy, one power card to a five energy, five power one.

“Many of the strongest decks right now have strategies centered around playing multiple cards on turn six,” Second Dinner said. “Sandman should be a good answer to these decks, but he didn’t quite have the sand to stand up to them with his previous statline. We’re giving him a bit more Power to make him a more competitive card, but also subsequently bumping up his cost.”

The update also featured a new series drop, dropping several cards from Series Five to Series Four, and from Series Four to Series Three.

The full list of today’s patch notes can be found below.

Marvel Snap Feb. 21 patch notes: Thanos buff, Darkhawk nerf

General updates

Some cards have gone from Series 5 to Series 4 and from Series 4 to Series 3

Series 5 -> 4:

• Silver Surfer
• Knull
• Darkhawk
• Sentry

Series 4 -> 3:

• Agent Coulson
• Maria Hill
• Helicarrier

Series 5 and Series 4 now have shared rotation protection in the Token Shop. Added a confirmation dialog when purchasing Season Pass levels. Tapping the Credits or Gold icons at the top of the screen will navigate to the Shop.

Art and visual effects

• Made Onslaught VFX faster (especially for Bar Sinister)
• Added additional VFX to the location affected by Klaw’s ability
• Added a notification for when you try and discard while your hand is empty
• Added animation for Rickety Bridge location Mysterio’s Illusions will now use your Mysterio’s variant

Card updates

Darkhawk: – 4/1 -> 4/0

Dev Comment: “Darkhawk is an especially powerful card. As we prepared this balance change before the Silver Surfer and Zabu nerfs went live, we didn’t want to hit him too hard. However, we definitely felt that knocking off at least one Power from him is warranted, and we will continue to monitor his performance.”

Thanos: 6/8 -> 6/11

Dev Comment: “We think Thanos is one of the coolest cards, and we’re a bit sad that he himself isn’t played often. Most Thanos decks focus primarily on making good use of the stones, but we want to make sure the mad titan himself has enough Power to play.”

Sandman: 4/1 -> 5/5

Dev Comment: “Many of the strongest decks right now have strategies centered around playing multiple cards on turn 6. Sandman should be a good answer to these decks, but he didn’t quite have the sand to stand up to them with his previous statline. We’re giving him a bit more Power to make him a more competitive card, but also subsequently bumping up his Cost.”

Dev Comment: “The cards below are rather weak at the moment, so we’re giving them a small buff to help them perform a bit better.”

• Spider-Woman: 5/7 -> 5/8
• Namor: 4/5 -> 4/6
• Dagger: 2/1 -> 2/2

Text-Only Update to Yondu: Destroy the top card of your opponent’s deck

Dev Comment: “Yondu’s text now accurately describes his effect. Please remember that most triggered and Ongoing effects are not active while a card is still in your deck, so despite the word ‘Destroy,’ Yondu can remove Colossus and Wolverine with impunity.”

Text-Only Update: As an ongoing effort to improve card and location text, we’ve adjusted everything that currently says “When you play a card” to say “After you play a card” instead. We hope this makes it clearer that these abilities trigger once a card has been fully played, including its On Reveal effects. None of these are functional changes.

• Angela
• Bishop
• Iron Fist
• Lockjaw
• Titania

Location updates

Sakaar: After this turn, put a card from each player’s hand here. Sakaar has a lot of weird interactions with cards like Storm and Wave as a consequence of revealing a card mid-turn. While we’re sad to lose the exciting moment of Sakaar revealing, we want to avoid these confusing interactions going forward. We think this design will also open up some interesting interaction points in the early game. As a note, Sakaar in the introductory missions will retain the old effect.

Text-Only Update: As noted in Card Updates, the following locations are being revised to use “After” instead of “When” for triggers related to playing a card. None of these are functional changes.

• Altar of Death
• Bar Sinister
• Cloning Vats
• Danger Room
• Death’s Domain
• Lechuguilla
• Luke’s Bar
• Machineworld
• Orchis Forge
• Quantum Tunnel
• Shuri’s Lab
• Sinister London
• Vibranium Mines
• Vormir

Adjusted the cost of Klyntar’s Symbiote from 1 to 4.

Bug Fixes

• Absorbing Man’s effect can now be doubled by effects like Wong, Kamar Taj, and Odin.
• The carousel should no longer get stuck mid-rotation on PC.
• Moved the position of the Pro Bundle to the bottom of the shop.
• Fast-forward VFX should properly show when Onslaught is played on Bar Sinister
• Altar of Death now gives energy if Green Goblin or Hobgoblin are played and destroyed on the opponent’s side.
• Losing internet connection on the Friendly Battle Matchmaking now gives a connection error message instead of remaining on the Matchmaking screen.
• Fixed a soft lock if both players were constantly idle in Friendly Battles.
• Reduced size of cards in focus view so they overlap less with the variant/artist nameplate.
• Fixed an issue that could cause soft locks in the Fast Upgrade flow.
• Focusing a card in CLTR and Season Pass no longer plays the “New Card Earned” stinger SFX.
• Purchasing Credits, Fast Upgrades, Token Shop cards, and Gold no longer causes the shop to scroll up.
• Fixed an issue that prevented some variants from displaying in the token shop properly.
• Miles Morales cost is correctly reduced if a card is moved and destroyed before its move resolves.
• Fixed a soft lock when the Undo Actions UI opened over the Retreat UI.
• AI should no longer retreat in matches for new players under rank 10.
• Ranked reward notification pips now appear again when you reach a new rank and have claimable rewards.
• The prompt for inputting an incorrect Friendly Battle code has been updated.
• Added correct variant name for a Sentry variant that was previously missing information.
• If a card is played on Shuri’s Lab and moves, the VFX now appear on the correct location.
• Enemy emote font size is no longer too small.
• Fixed an Aw Snap error that could occur when Strange Academy moved cards.
• Goose’s VFX now plays in the correct location when it moves.
• Kingpin’s VFX should now always show in the correct location.
• Fixed an issue that would cause Jessica Jone’s VFX to not display properly.
• Punisher’s drag VFX should now display correctly.
• Iron Fist no longer remains on the board if it is destroyed after activating.
• Fixed an issue that was causing Vormir sound effects to not play at times
• Fixed a problem with Korean fonts that made text too big in some instances
• Booster colors are now updating properly in the Battle Pass rewards list
• Fix to Isle of Silence for cards that are not marked Ongoing in text
• Fixed a layout problem that caused a gap between the in-game Player and Opponent Avatar and the Player and Opponent Info pop-up
• Quickly tapping to get premium Season Pass multiple times will no longer cause the game to be stuck.
• Many art fixes over a variety of cards and variants.
• The Steam client should now use current language as the initial locale
• Having 3 or 4 custom searches no longer causes the UI elements in the Filter menu to clip into each other.
• Search & filter menus no longer clip under the notch at the top of iOS devices.
• The Player Name change icon is no longer squished on certain devices.
• Fixed the font size for some languages for the header text on the new season’s Welcome splash screen.
• Fixed an issue where you could purchase the wrong item from the token shop if you purchased just as the shop rolled over.
• It is no longer possible to enter nothing but spaces as a profile name.
• Added a ‘no connection’ warning to the main splash screen.