I don’t know about all of you, my fellow Marvel Snap (Free) players, but these days when I see a balance update I find myself clenching my… teeth and bracing for the impact to my decks. They’ve been pretty spicy of late, after all. How will the latest one go? Certainly, we’ve seen a lot of play for Arishem since that card was added, and I have a feeling a lot of what we’re about to see is going to revolve around weakening him without, you know, directly weakening him. Let’s dig in and see all the details, shall we?

Truth be told, this update has more buffs than nerfs. And that’s nice to see, because no one really feels good about nerfs. Especially nerfs that hit fairly new cards that some might have forked over hard-earned money for. I think the cards being whacked today are of a sufficient vintage that we can accept it and move forward, even if the real purpose behind these adjustments is to go after the spiffy-new Arishem.

So to the first one, Blob. Once immovable and with potential Power through the roof, Blob is taking another minor hit today.  No change to his stats or his main ability, but he is now losing his Ongoing ability that makes him unable to be moved. This is mainly down to how other cards interact with Ongoing cards, with Mystique mentioned as providing a double Blob that an Arishem deck can fuel. Fair, but it does ruin a cute mechanic that fits with the actual character.

Mockingbird has gone from being a high-level menace to an over-the-top threat since Arishem came into play, and that means she’s getting booped with the nerf bat. Up until now she has been a 5-Power 9-Cost card, but she’s moving into the 6-Cost tier from here on. She gets an extra point of Power as an apology, but that means with 10-Power she is officially in Shang-Chi’s strike zone. Uh oh!

The last nerf is for Ravonna Renslayer. It’s another stat bump, carving off one point of Power to shift her from 2-Cost 3-Power to 2-Cost 2-Power. In the official patch notes, Second Dinner mentions that she’s a hard card to work around because tweaking Power down on some cards might actually buff them with her around. This has nothing to do with Arishem, but rather just to see if her usage can be toned down a little.

Okay, buff time. Hydra Bob sucks. It’s an unfortunate thing, given he’s a new card and all, but he’s terrible. Clearly meant for the upcoming Deadpool’s Diner mode, but if that’s all he’s good for then he isn’t a whole lot of use. He gets a slight buff from 1-Cost 4-Power to 1-Cost 5-Power, with his ability remaining unchanged. On the one hand, pretty strong for a 1-Cost card. On the other hand, there are better ways to use that spot in your deck.

Viper’s ability has gotten tweaked. Before she would just move one of your cards at the location to your opponent’s side without playing favorites, so you had to be really careful to not send something useful. Now, she’s send one of your cards with the lowest Power over, which makes her more able to target Hoods and Goblins for those special deliveries.

A trio of quick hit Power buffs! Sauron, from 3-Cost 3-Power to 3-Cost 4-Power! Werewolf by Night, from 3-Cost 1-Power to 3-Cost 2-Power! Hit-Monkey, from 3-Cost 2-Power to 3-Cost 3-Power! None of these cards had their abilities changed at all, so it’s just a bit of gravy and sprinkles for them to help them out a little.

Finally, our good boy Lockjaw is getting his groove back! He’s eating a slight stat debuff, going from 4-Cost 5-Power to 4-Cost 4-Power. But! But! He’s now back to swapping out as many cards per turn as you can place at his location, instead of just one. Yes, the nerf he took a little while back really hurt him badly, and it kind of broke down the value of the Asgardians too. We’ll see if they can all recover.

And that’s it for this update. What do you think of these balance changes? Are they hitting any of your favorite decks particularly hard? Are you going to add any of those buffed cards into your rotation? Sound off in the comments below and let us know. Good luck out there!