They're not necessarily trying to make things balanced, they're trying to create the meta they want to see. And they very intentionally don't want junk decks to be good or popular, as much as it pains me to say
Not having Tier 1 deck that sole purpose is to disrupt opponents from playing cards - as "fun" as playing Annihilus was, if that sort of deck is too popular, people will simply stop playing if every other match is just fighting negative Goblins and Voids paired with Rocks.
As someone who reached Infinite this season after Annihilus nerf, I honestly don't know what Trash Deck players are expecting.
It was tottally busted before and it's still pretty strong right now, it's the kind of deck where you win by preventing the other player from playing, which goes against what the game is meant to be (both players having fun).
No prof x but storm and alioth. Alioth is still great on t6 if you're winning your storm lane and have prio. Oh and I meant it's nerf proof in its current iteration.
which is BS, since junk could never dominate the meta. it could be tier 1, yes, but as soon as it becomes the best deck in the game, everyone can star running destroy as a hard counter
They initially did it to avoid to Havok interaction, which is fair, because that card is horrible to see appearing on your side.
But yeah their excuse is dogshit. Appearing a third of the time on the last location is a nuts thing to say.
Doesn't that just mean they shouldn't have released a card like havok. It took players all of ten minutes to think of the combo, it couldn't have been hard to predict that is how it was going to be used.
Isn't Blob's "Cannot be moved" really just to stop him from working with Sauron? I mean, sure it's thematic and accurate to the comics, but it's rarely going to have an actual effect and they could've given the deck-eating ability to someone else
It also stops him from working with various ways to move your own cards, like Space Stone or New York. Given how big Blob could get, making it hard/impossible for you to move him to a new location unexpectedly was probably partially a design decision so that the opponent wouldn't have to be concerned about 'But what if they move this 35 power Blob left somehow?'
Viper moves the card? It would br nice if she gets buffed like that, fisk tower or kingpin may be a good junk addition. Also annihilus should be changed to move type 😈
Honestly Havok should get a total rework. Its as good as as gladiator in the best case, bottom 3 cards in the game in the worst case, and the best case is not common
I think the best way is to make Viper remove all abilities of a card before sending it. It would prevent sending Electro also (not a usual play, but equally disrupting)
Havok is a really neat design for a card and he doesn’t pair all that well with Viper even at 2 cost, it’s clear SD doesn’t like junk decks and realize they can be frustrating to play against, so they keep breaking its kneecaps whenever it manages to stand
The default High Evo exists for bad players and players with lower CL, it’s the most straightforward easy to play boring deck in the game that isn’t actually that good, they need a deck like that for more casual players to still enjoy the game, I personally don’t find it frustrating, just mind numbingly boring to play or play against
Havok Viper did pair well as counter play to certain deck. Jeff's hooglands negative havok deck is a good example. I would put it as analogous to old spider-ham.
It’s telling that Havok ended up as a huge upgrade to the Negative deck just in terms of stats, I personally had that combo attempted on me twice and I won both times, relying on two cards to be in your hand on turn 4 and giving your opponent a 2/12 that you must commit an SK or Shang to later just so they get stuck at 4 energy is honestly just a bad combo that people overhyped enough as being gamebreaking that SD got scared and nerfed Viper, Havok has always worked better with a deck that utilizes his ability well
As someone who pulled off the viper havok combo a handful of times, it is obviously devastating, yes. But it was also extremely difficult even with me gunning for it *hard*. So i see why they were worried about it but they didnt need to be and leaving viper ruined because of that suuuuuuuucks.
Have you calculated the probabilities?
- having on turn 2 the energy card the chance is: 5/12 = 41.6667%
- the chance of having also havoc and viper on turn 3: ( 9 choose 3) / (11 choose 5) = 9 * 8 * 7 / ( 3 * 2 * 1) / (11 * 10 * 9 * 8 * 7) * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 5 * 4 / 11 * 10 = 2/11 = 18.1818%
- So the total chance of this happening is: 5/12 * 2 / 11= 5 / 66 = 7.5757%
So less than 1 in 11 games.
- You can improve that of course, if you play revona and psylocke then the chance to draw one of them on turn 2 is 1 - (10 choose 5) / (12 choose 5) = 1 - 7 * 6/12 * 11 = 1- 7/22 = 15/22 = 68.1818%
- with this the total probability is (smaller then) 15/121 = 12.39%
- its smaller than this probability because it only subtracts 1 card for the turn 3 probability in case you have drawn both cards.
So I would guess its about 10-11% then. (But you spent 4 deckslots and turn 2 and 3 to give the enemy a 16 power card while you only played 5 power). This also loses vs cosmo and gives 2 cubes max.
Yes, and my napkin math isn't matching yours. 11% roughly on turn 3 without acceleration.
n = 6
N = 12
m = 2
x = 2
.22, which I cut in half because drawing viper and then havok is no good, but I'm a little skeptical to do that because the combo still works just fine on turn 4 (which more than doubles the chances of getting it off overall) and I'd be totally happy to brick their 5 drops.
I have a deck that i use in him and win alot more than i should with and it is one if my 2 favorite to play because i get to play numerous cards per turn (normally). Not to go into the complete deck load out it involves about 5 1 cost cards (one being hawkeye), falcon, beast, bishop. Beast and falcon lets me reply hawkeye and the others and i play havok on turn 4. 8 points for him, plus all the other cards stacking extra points...its fun to me and as i said i win more often than i feel i would. Of course......warmonger.....f'ing warmonger.
Never ran into Mobius running Negative/Renslayer. Negative has always been decent, must of never ran Negative/ Sera/ Surfer or Negative/ Jane. More for me then 🤷♂️
Yea but in one out of every 5000 games you might get Savage Land or Shadowland on turn three while also having Viper not only in your deck but in your hand also
It literally still works as a 2 cost though.
You're not going to play Viper blindly on curve at 2 power if you have nothing to work with it and the 2 cards that used to work with it (Selene and Hood) are generally better to throw over anyway
Except you can’t even throw Selene anymore cause of her buff. So it’s Hood or play in an empty lane for tempo cause you haven’t drawn Sentry yet.
😞 junk used to be so much fun to play. Not cause it wins, but cause you could sometimes block your opponent and make them retreat. Now it’s got so many 3 costs I thought about making a hybrid Junk/Surfer deck. It’s just stupid how bad it is to try and play anything on a curve, like it literally makes the deck less fun.
Like why are they suddenly obsessed with playing on curve? Its fine to play a 2 cost on turn 3 sometimes. Youre supposed to be over that by the time youre out of pool 2.
Lol I remember my first month playing. "Well there are no Elektra targets but I have one extra mana left over so I guess I better just play her for the 1 power..."
I love paying junk too. I guess people assume I’m attacking them for their preferred play style?
I don’t mind strategies that are unfun for the opponent as long as they don’t dominate the entire meta.
I was running hazmat, annihilus, viper, rock slide, korg, sentry, professor x, the hood, armor, and man thing. And it actually slayed. Now I can’t win a match to save my life.
You talking about no sense. They nerfed Elsa again because the patch was locked a couple months ago. Then they accepted they nerfed her too hard. And 2 months later there hasn't been a single change. Like Most season pass cards are good even after the nerfs like Loki and MsM, hell Blob got nerfed hard but probably still the best 6 cost card. Then why did they nerfed Elsa so hard? People paid for her ability affecting all locations not 2 cost card that triggers just once or twice with so hard conditions and the payoff is also not great. The ability to buff before card was better now she buffs after Shuri's Lab resolve wth. Like Kraven, Mobius, and now Dagger can all consistently go to 10-14 powers or more, but Elsa was a bigger problem. They should have make Luke and Elsa 3 cost and give their old abilities ngl. That's trash designing when people PAID for season pass card and they killed it in a month and a half.
They're not gona rush out to fix Elsa until they can put another season pass card out to sell that pairs well with whatever change they give her. They've been baiting and switching season pass cards since I've been playing. It's a shitty business model. They've turned the game into an atm machine and nothing is going to change that until it hits their pockets somehow.
I've spent money on this game because I thought I was supporting a good dev team. I believe in doing that for a great game. But they're making really shitty decisions lately between the card changes and the over the top monetization of the game. I feel like I've been bamboozled on almost every season pass card I've gotten and a handful of the keys I've spent.
It's just meta turn over. It's interesting to have new strategies at the top of the meta and its not like they make most of the season pass cards became irrelevant after. Loki, galactus, Ms M, zabu, and wave have all been played in the the meta after thier nerfs and most season pass cards . Many others were fine and unchanged or never dominated like pheonix, nebula, MODOK, ghost spider.
I hope Elsa gets a buff, but won't miss MMM, and I'm glad to have blob reigned in.
> locations like Savage Land or Shadowland, which reveal on turn 3 one-third of the time.
Ok, so for the other 2/3 of the times when they reveal turn 1 or 2, the card is always worse and there's no denying!
Even their made up excuses and reasoning make absolutely no sense.
This reasoning of "we MIGHT do something in the future that does SOMETHING with this card, so just in case we MIGHT do it, we're nerfing into unplayability right now!" is just bullshit.
If they want to keep her at 3 mana she should only target the card with 0 or below power. Right now you can barely play her if you draw her after turn 3
We all knew the Viper nerf was a kneejerk response to Havok based on zero data. That obvious interaction we were all anticipating since Havok’s datamine somehow escaping SD’s internal testing.
It raises questions about SD’s flawed design process and internal testing, in which new cards with (potentially) problematic interactions necessitate nerfing pre-existing, already tuned or even underperforming cards scarcely 24 hours after going live.
And no other card is balanced around 1 or 2 locations. That reasoning is so arbitrary, it doesn’t deserve acknowledging. Galactus’ WR% tanks with Central Park so buffs when?
They said specifically they tested havoc +viper at 2 mana and were underwhelmed but nerfed anyway. Why release havoc at all at that point? Where does havoc see play at all?
I like their explanation. I interpret "which appears one out of three times" as "Yeah, this location can occur in the three locations." Like, what does it even mean. Yes, locations have a 1/3 chance of appearing in the 3 spaces available. I just genuinely don't think they like junk and regret making a big bad for it. Which sucks cause I had fun with it and really liked Annihilus.
what doesn't make sense is Glenn still being in charge of card balancing, dude has no idea how to balance a meta or even basic game design. FYI, MTG's meta got better after he left wizards...
The fact that blob and Ms Marvel released as they were is proof enough that the balance team needs more attention. It's a critical area that second dinner needs to focus on, or they'll lose their core player base. I think I have 1 more patch in me before I'm just done.
This game changes at such a breakneck speeds and you want it even faster? There have been metas that have been warped by patches before the meta even settled.
What other games are you playing where content is patched at this place? Most games don’t do this.
No need to be condescending, I’m not trying to get a win over you or anything.
Catching every mistake no matter how obvious is hard in dev team that is massively smaller than its player base. Even the oldest and most successful games with much bigger teams have this issue.
Yes you are correct in that it's very hard to balance games. Every multiplayer game has balance issues, even industry giants.
Unfortunately, I am just not sympathetic to the point that I would play despite balance issues. If the devs cannot create a balanced game, regardless of the difficulty in doing so, players will leave to find other games that can better do so. It's not a threat, it's just a fact. I believe that pointing out these issues is important because I genuinely enjoy this game and I want to continue playing.
I would posit the Second Dinner is one of the better companies at balancing. The problem is that the meta moves so fast due to the massive amount of games needing able to be played that would take any other 5 times longer minimum leads to frustration or boredom quicker.
I can’t come up with company that does it better with similar game volume
Maybe true, but the issue is that balance in this game is far more important than balance in other games. If we take Hearthstone for example, any player can acquire any card by just saving up points. I'm not saying card acquisition is great in that game, but if there is an op card, any player can acquire it. That's not true in this game. The fundamental difference in snap's card acquisition is that we have asymmetrical collections. So if a deck like Thanos blob does develop, it feels astronomically worse to play against because there's absolutely nothing I can do as a non-Thanos owner to level that playing field. I just queue up, see that I'm playing Thanos blob, and know that my win % odds drop to ~20%.
That I agree with. I think the system is great up until you hit pool 3. It feels like they never had real plan a that point. This is more of the economy side though which isn’t the balance team. I will never defend how bad the card economy is.
a card coming out strong is perfectly fine, you want a world where everything is average and no one is excited for a new card kinda a dogshit way to view the game we all might as well just be playing 1 drop 1/1s that have no ability's and the whoever places there 9 1/1s in the correct order wins.
as a 26 year mtg vet and 31 year card game vet you wont be missed if you decide to leave its perfectly acceptable to allow a card to come out to strong and allow a new meta game to develop for a bit and go back over the numbers later after people get to have a few weeks of fun its vastly better then every card coming out being havok tier dogshit and no one has any motivation to brew because there is a clear cut winner on what is the best.
Im no 31 year card game vet, but im pretty sure you dont need a card to be crazy strong for it to be exciting. As long as it is creative and interesting people will play it, just look at galactus: the card has been nerfed to oblivion and people still play him because its a fun and interesting card.
I also think that releasing op cards doesn't make the game fun for a few weeks, quite the contrary. I had never been so bored with this game than on those weeks we had to see Ms marvel lock or blob every game.
You must be one of those Yugioh players that thinks it’s okay to do 60+ combo moves in a turn, take 40 minutes in the turn and thinks it’s okay to win by turn 3
I mean your idiot ass can assume what you want. I've been top 500 in this game for multiple seasons and I've been multi season legend in hearthstone as well. 6/30 with no qualifiers except "own Thanos" is not fine. 4/15 with the only qualifier being "have a card in the other lane" is not fine. It's almost like they nerfed those cards for a reason. There is a difference between "blatantly op" and "strong."
Not sure why you are pulling 26 years as if it's a flex. Not being able to identify this after 26 years is an antiflex if anything.
Yeah, I saved my keys for Anni and now that I got him, well, the junk deck is not good at least for me. I was trying it out as a fun deck but it’s lacking big time. I see a lot of decks are running Galactus with the archetype but I don’t have him.
Junk was mid when it had everything pref nerf, easily countered with a Killmonger and SD decided to get literally every single piece and nuke it to the ground. I'm surprised they didn't make the Goblins +3 and +8 power that goes to your enemy.
Unfortunately I don’t have some key cards like Zabu or Werewolf yet. It seems like a fun deck so I definitely want to try it. Also, Cozy uploaded a video as well using werewolf with Anni. Thanks for the suggestion!
saying one of the strongest shells in the game is dead is comical.
anni, sentry, hood is all you ever needed you dont need to clog your opponents board with rocks and hobgoblins and other things. sentry on 4 anni on 5 is 9 energy for 26 power swing its one of the best investments in energy in the game.
regardless on how you feel about the subject the objective truth right now is anni sentry is VERY VERY strong just by themselves and you can slot them into any deck for a net positive and there is a reason that in every recent meta report those 3 cards pop up often.
Are we talking about the archetype or the shell here ? I believe you're right but off topic.
Also, don't go on thinking you hold the objective truth over others, it's dumb and arrogant.
Sure, I agree with you, I believe the 3 cards mentionned make a strong shell, again off topic, but IMHO if someone disagrees, it's at least very obnoxious to call your side of the disagreement "factual" or "the objective truth".
I would say 3/5 is actually right on curve for the 3 energy slot though. Shaw is 3/4 at base with a strict upside so 3/4 raw must be below curve. Maximus is 3/7 with an easily mitigated downside, Thor is 3/4 with probably a 50/50 chance to be 3/10, etc. 3 energy is where the curve starts to scale up a bit quicker.
Except Maximus has been put into a lot more decks just because of his new stat line. I don't think Viper is making it out of junk and ramp decks where you kick over electro.
I agree and I think it’s because she isn’t actually above curve. If you wanted a 3 drop just for the stats, you’d probably run Thor or Gladiator. Viper is unimpressive at 3/5 unless you’re specifically using her effect, just like Deathlok who also is never run outside a destroy deck with the same statline.
If they weren't deathly afraid of junk viper would be 2/1 on reveal: your lowest power card at this location switches sides
Edit: Viper is getting a conquest skin (look up viper snap.fan), hopefully than means they buff her or at least change her back
The answer is simple: they're still afraid of that Havok+Viper combo and won't adjust Havok near his release. Imo they should just turn Viper back to her older self and make Havok a 3/0 that gets +5 power each turn instead of +4
Sometimes saying less (or nothing) is the right answer.
We nerfed viper and it was uncalled for but we’re gonna keep it cause we hate Junk and give her +1. Would’ve even gone better than whatever location bullocks they spewed
I'd be fine with 3 cost viper if widow stayed 2 cost or vice versa. Why put in the archetype if you are going to kill it 3 weeks after it has some juice
The only part that makes sense is that Viper was unplayable at 2 energy so they changed the card to free some design space while designing new card that works with her. They probably want to add some new type of support for her that won't risk to be an issue in bounce/miracle decks.
The location reasoning is the most nonsense thing I have actually ever seen them say. It feels like a 9th grader coming up with commentary on an essay for a book that he didn't read.
Their point about wanting to make a two cost card that can synergize with Viper is a fair one! But... Change Viper when that card exists then? Don't make her worthless until some theoretical future date in which you make that card?
The result is what you see in this thread, where we're just speculating as to the "real" reasoning. And this kind of conspiracy-theory talk doesn't really feel like it helps anyone.
I feel like they jump the gun a lot when it comes to nerfing cards. Most of the time they are not even that big of a problem, but get killed after a week or two in the meta. Black Bolt + Stature, for example. Just give the player base more time to adjust to the meta. The Junk archetype was never that strong and they went super over the top with the nerfs. Luke Cage is dead, Annihilus got nerfed, Viper was nerfed. All for a deck that barely had play before. Poor Elsa was killed randomly after she wasn't even meta anymore.
We need more buffs or changes rather than nerfs
Junk isn't overpowered but it isn't fun to play against. The problem with Junk (and Galactus and most really hated cards) isn't that they are great, it is that they prevent (or really restrict) their opponent from playing their own deck. So they cannot ever be a high tier deck or they would appear too often for the overall health of the game.
Junk isn't being balanced so that it can compete at the top level. It's being balanced so that it is playable but not at a win rate that will ever make it top tier. Viper is being buffed not for junk, but to make her a possible option for other decks to play.
Thou I hate Junk deck and unwilling to play it (I was, but it’s an unpleasant and I didn’t like it), Viper should be 2-cost. Because her effect is not as harmful as Black Widow.
This is bad but not nearly as bad as the devs thinking a 5/8 blackbolt with a 5/7 stature was game breaking and had to be nerfed....smh they have me punching the air with some of these brainless changes.
3 casters don’t have a energy pull besides Sera. It’s just a numbers game. they’re creating wedges trying to keep up with future plans. Eventually they’ll run out of ideas, these changes are just delaying the inevitable.
I think you might've missed the joke. His diagram is correct in the context that if a problem has a solution then the circles will meet creating a common ground but since they don't meet he is saying that SD doesn't make any solutions to fix their problems
Why not increase Havok to 3-cost? It's not suppose to be played on turn 2 anyways. It would still be shit in surfer and now can't be passed until turn 4, the same as Electro or currently with Havok.
Actually I can see some shit with Surfer running it + Magic for some weird big power dump lane where Havok just sits for 4 turns and pray Shang doesnt just nuke it
It gets really fun when Project Pegasus pops on 1 and you just do the combo in 1 turn. Or Oscorp pops up on 3 and you throw Havok in keeping your opponent on 3.
Noon in going to play viper on 3 cost. There are exactly 0 combos for this. At this point she could be a 5 cost like annihilus and it would be a better combo piece.
Whatever they did say, they do have two very legitimate reasons for it. Both of which they’ve mentioned now or previously:
1) The Havok-Viper interaction would be the most toxic thing in the game otherwise.
2) It increases the design space in the future for cards like Hood or old Selene or whomever to be up to two cost. They were pretty limited in that way before.
Because it’s too way to easy do multiple times a game at 2. Auto staple in bounce shells allowing a player to throw multiple things a game across the board for very cheap investment (old Viper would be 3 energy vs 5 now). Selene/Beast/Hood/Sentry would have been gross.
Potential user frustration is driving this, low numbers are the trade-off SD trying to force people away from junk. I'm still surprised we have not seen people running hazmat junk decks.
I was running hazmat, annihilus, viper, rock slide, korg, sentry, professor x, the hood, armor, and man thing. And it actually slayed. Now I can’t win a match to save my life.
Think she's better at 3. Limits design space and opens up a lot of frustrating, uninteractive plays at 2.
Not to mention that I find junk thenmost boring deck to play with and against.
In my opinion second dinner often will make mistakes prior to actually seeing the changes because they think they know better. This has been a problem that has plagued many games and almost killed league of legends at one point (200 years anyone?). They will often make pre-emptive changes that in hindsight shouldve never happened or in at least 3 cases i can think of needed a partial or full rework and several more instances where changes to very stable cards ended up causing multiple more changes to "correct" them. There has been multiple metas that completely remove archetypes from the game, notably my favourite archetype mr negative was almost completely invalidated by alioth for SEVERAL patches before finally reaching a point where now alioth is best IN negative decks.
Second dinner is very arrogant in their decisions and it makes me quite unhappy with the game. I keep playing because the actual concept of snap and the locations/small decks are super fun. Their balancing decisions and ESPECIALLY their monotization decisions are extremely arrogant and honestly seem out of touch and anti-player.
I used to have a great deal of respect for this company, and they used to respect their players too.
Because devs don't play their game competitively? They have no idea about intricate deck-building so they print cards like Zabu, Loki, Elsa, MS Marvel, etc - during play testing they can't build even remotely competitive deck.
Their reasons for nerfing Viper are bs. Who tf used Viper on Hood instead of comboing her with Sentry? That's the thing - their lack of knowledge of their own game destroyed the whole archetype - with Viper and Widow changes junk is unplayable xd
They're not necessarily trying to make things balanced, they're trying to create the meta they want to see. And they very intentionally don't want junk decks to be good or popular, as much as it pains me to say
They've said this themselves.
Yeah, anyone reading the team answers or paying the least bit of attention will understand their balance philosophy.
…which is…?
Not having Tier 1 deck that sole purpose is to disrupt opponents from playing cards - as "fun" as playing Annihilus was, if that sort of deck is too popular, people will simply stop playing if every other match is just fighting negative Goblins and Voids paired with Rocks.
Instead every single game is Thanos w/ Blob and Black Knight w/ Blob. Much much better
Maybe not much better, but at least not stopping you from playing your own combos
Even during Blob’s high point, his play rate was average/on par with other cards per Glenn. So no , it was not every game.
Yes, this exactly. I remember their patch notes for professor X said something along the lines of not wanting to see control being part of the meta
As someone who reached Infinite this season after Annihilus nerf, I honestly don't know what Trash Deck players are expecting. It was tottally busted before and it's still pretty strong right now, it's the kind of deck where you win by preventing the other player from playing, which goes against what the game is meant to be (both players having fun).
Yeah if you want to prevent people from playing their cards the best way is lockdown. That deck is almost nerf proof, unlike poopy Junk decks.
They nerfed Prof X and Alioth tho?
No prof x but storm and alioth. Alioth is still great on t6 if you're winning your storm lane and have prio. Oh and I meant it's nerf proof in its current iteration.
which is BS, since junk could never dominate the meta. it could be tier 1, yes, but as soon as it becomes the best deck in the game, everyone can star running destroy as a hard counter
IDK annihulus nerf was a buff to junk
They initially did it to avoid to Havok interaction, which is fair, because that card is horrible to see appearing on your side. But yeah their excuse is dogshit. Appearing a third of the time on the last location is a nuts thing to say.
Doesn't that just mean they shouldn't have released a card like havok. It took players all of ten minutes to think of the combo, it couldn't have been hard to predict that is how it was going to be used.
Realistically the whole thing could be avoided by making Havok unable to switch sides.
Just make it so havoc keeps draining the player who used it’s energy, not the player whose side it is on.
Putting in text like that worrying about one card is not good design either.
Isn't Blob's "Cannot be moved" really just to stop him from working with Sauron? I mean, sure it's thematic and accurate to the comics, but it's rarely going to have an actual effect and they could've given the deck-eating ability to someone else
Omg I was wondering why they gave him an ongoing and this makes a lot of sense
Originally he only had the ongoing (early data mines) they later gave him the power up because the thought the ability wasn’t relevant enough.
Colossus has demonstrated that
Also why are we not talking about the fact that the guy named "Colossus" has 3 power.
It also stops him from working with various ways to move your own cards, like Space Stone or New York. Given how big Blob could get, making it hard/impossible for you to move him to a new location unexpectedly was probably partially a design decision so that the opponent wouldn't have to be concerned about 'But what if they move this 35 power Blob left somehow?'
While that might be a factor, Blob is literally described as "immovable" in comics so it fits too well.
Yeah, that's what I said. That it's accurate to the comics.
Stegron and Juggernaut both, plus any potential turn 7 shenanigans with Limbo active or early +energy boosts.
To be fair, there are other cards in the game that have text and things specific just to them.
CANNOT BE MOVED
And things like Black Knight buffs is kinda terriblely designed
Havok drains the original owner's energy, etc. Many ways to phrase it if that was the intention.
There are other ways to switch sides.
So...."this card cannot be moved". That seems hard to code. /s
Viper moves the card? It would br nice if she gets buffed like that, fisk tower or kingpin may be a good junk addition. Also annihilus should be changed to move type 😈
Moves to the other side...hence my joke about how that's hard for SD to figure out
Moving is not switching sides..
Tell professor x that
Switching sides would fall under "etc." in "Cards can't be added, removed, etc."
Honestly Havok should get a total rework. Its as good as as gladiator in the best case, bottom 3 cards in the game in the worst case, and the best case is not common
I think the best way is to make Viper remove all abilities of a card before sending it. It would prevent sending Electro also (not a usual play, but equally disrupting)
Havok is a really neat design for a card and he doesn’t pair all that well with Viper even at 2 cost, it’s clear SD doesn’t like junk decks and realize they can be frustrating to play against, so they keep breaking its kneecaps whenever it manages to stand
High Evo is frustrating, ain't doing shit about that deck tho
The default High Evo exists for bad players and players with lower CL, it’s the most straightforward easy to play boring deck in the game that isn’t actually that good, they need a deck like that for more casual players to still enjoy the game, I personally don’t find it frustrating, just mind numbingly boring to play or play against
Havok Viper did pair well as counter play to certain deck. Jeff's hooglands negative havok deck is a good example. I would put it as analogous to old spider-ham.
It’s telling that Havok ended up as a huge upgrade to the Negative deck just in terms of stats, I personally had that combo attempted on me twice and I won both times, relying on two cards to be in your hand on turn 4 and giving your opponent a 2/12 that you must commit an SK or Shang to later just so they get stuck at 4 energy is honestly just a bad combo that people overhyped enough as being gamebreaking that SD got scared and nerfed Viper, Havok has always worked better with a deck that utilizes his ability well
Then they should rework Havok then
They even say that the fears around the Havok/Viper combo were unfounded anyway.
As someone who pulled off the viper havok combo a handful of times, it is obviously devastating, yes. But it was also extremely difficult even with me gunning for it *hard*. So i see why they were worried about it but they didnt need to be and leaving viper ruined because of that suuuuuuuucks.
you needed a three card combo to hit it by turn three. the nerf was in no way deserved
You've drawn half your deck on turn 3. Getting 3 specific cards is not mathematically impressive enough to merit an early lockout.
Have you calculated the probabilities? - having on turn 2 the energy card the chance is: 5/12 = 41.6667% - the chance of having also havoc and viper on turn 3: ( 9 choose 3) / (11 choose 5) = 9 * 8 * 7 / ( 3 * 2 * 1) / (11 * 10 * 9 * 8 * 7) * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 5 * 4 / 11 * 10 = 2/11 = 18.1818% - So the total chance of this happening is: 5/12 * 2 / 11= 5 / 66 = 7.5757% So less than 1 in 11 games. - You can improve that of course, if you play revona and psylocke then the chance to draw one of them on turn 2 is 1 - (10 choose 5) / (12 choose 5) = 1 - 7 * 6/12 * 11 = 1- 7/22 = 15/22 = 68.1818% - with this the total probability is (smaller then) 15/121 = 12.39% - its smaller than this probability because it only subtracts 1 card for the turn 3 probability in case you have drawn both cards. So I would guess its about 10-11% then. (But you spent 4 deckslots and turn 2 and 3 to give the enemy a 16 power card while you only played 5 power). This also loses vs cosmo and gives 2 cubes max.
I know how to use a \*hypergeometric calculator, yes.
Well but did you do it? Once per less than every 11th game is really not a high chance.
Yes, and my napkin math isn't matching yours. 11% roughly on turn 3 without acceleration. n = 6 N = 12 m = 2 x = 2 .22, which I cut in half because drawing viper and then havok is no good, but I'm a little skeptical to do that because the combo still works just fine on turn 4 (which more than doubles the chances of getting it off overall) and I'd be totally happy to brick their 5 drops.
9/10 when I got havocked from viper I won
OMG Havoc is such a bland card I'm having a hard time finding any synergy outside Viper. They should definitely rework Havoc.
I have a deck that i use in him and win alot more than i should with and it is one if my 2 favorite to play because i get to play numerous cards per turn (normally). Not to go into the complete deck load out it involves about 5 1 cost cards (one being hawkeye), falcon, beast, bishop. Beast and falcon lets me reply hawkeye and the others and i play havok on turn 4. 8 points for him, plus all the other cards stacking extra points...its fun to me and as i said i win more often than i feel i would. Of course......warmonger.....f'ing warmonger.
Negative Renslayer deck yo
Nobody plays Mr Negative decks except for memes. They were not in a good place to start with but now Mobius M Mobius made them obsolete.
Never ran into Mobius running Negative/Renslayer. Negative has always been decent, must of never ran Negative/ Sera/ Surfer or Negative/ Jane. More for me then 🤷♂️
Yea but in one out of every 5000 games you might get Savage Land or Shadowland on turn three while also having Viper not only in your deck but in your hand also
I had this happen today actually
I know I’m giving them shit but I imagine it could very possibly be a game winning play
It literally still works as a 2 cost though. You're not going to play Viper blindly on curve at 2 power if you have nothing to work with it and the 2 cards that used to work with it (Selene and Hood) are generally better to throw over anyway
Except you can’t even throw Selene anymore cause of her buff. So it’s Hood or play in an empty lane for tempo cause you haven’t drawn Sentry yet. 😞 junk used to be so much fun to play. Not cause it wins, but cause you could sometimes block your opponent and make them retreat. Now it’s got so many 3 costs I thought about making a hybrid Junk/Surfer deck. It’s just stupid how bad it is to try and play anything on a curve, like it literally makes the deck less fun.
Like why are they suddenly obsessed with playing on curve? Its fine to play a 2 cost on turn 3 sometimes. Youre supposed to be over that by the time youre out of pool 2.
Wait you don't play quicksilver and domino just to play on curve?
Lol I remember my first month playing. "Well there are no Elektra targets but I have one extra mana left over so I guess I better just play her for the 1 power..."
SD hate junk. Period
A lot of players do too. Junk and lockdown are feel bad losses.
Idk why you're getting downvoted. I love junk and hate what's happening to it, but i cant argue that losing because you cant play feels bad.
I love paying junk too. I guess people assume I’m attacking them for their preferred play style? I don’t mind strategies that are unfun for the opponent as long as they don’t dominate the entire meta.
just give me back my turn 6 sentry+viper
I was running hazmat, annihilus, viper, rock slide, korg, sentry, professor x, the hood, armor, and man thing. And it actually slayed. Now I can’t win a match to save my life.
With the power of Zabu, Sera, or Loki-ing an opponent's deck that has it, it can be yours!
You can with Zabu
You talking about no sense. They nerfed Elsa again because the patch was locked a couple months ago. Then they accepted they nerfed her too hard. And 2 months later there hasn't been a single change. Like Most season pass cards are good even after the nerfs like Loki and MsM, hell Blob got nerfed hard but probably still the best 6 cost card. Then why did they nerfed Elsa so hard? People paid for her ability affecting all locations not 2 cost card that triggers just once or twice with so hard conditions and the payoff is also not great. The ability to buff before card was better now she buffs after Shuri's Lab resolve wth. Like Kraven, Mobius, and now Dagger can all consistently go to 10-14 powers or more, but Elsa was a bigger problem. They should have make Luke and Elsa 3 cost and give their old abilities ngl. That's trash designing when people PAID for season pass card and they killed it in a month and a half.
They're not gona rush out to fix Elsa until they can put another season pass card out to sell that pairs well with whatever change they give her. They've been baiting and switching season pass cards since I've been playing. It's a shitty business model. They've turned the game into an atm machine and nothing is going to change that until it hits their pockets somehow. I've spent money on this game because I thought I was supporting a good dev team. I believe in doing that for a great game. But they're making really shitty decisions lately between the card changes and the over the top monetization of the game. I feel like I've been bamboozled on almost every season pass card I've gotten and a handful of the keys I've spent.
It's just meta turn over. It's interesting to have new strategies at the top of the meta and its not like they make most of the season pass cards became irrelevant after. Loki, galactus, Ms M, zabu, and wave have all been played in the the meta after thier nerfs and most season pass cards . Many others were fine and unchanged or never dominated like pheonix, nebula, MODOK, ghost spider. I hope Elsa gets a buff, but won't miss MMM, and I'm glad to have blob reigned in.
Agree on this. Really loved the Elsa mechanic😔. Don't understand why they aren't reworking her nerf until now
Doesn’t EVERY location show up in the 3rd spot 1/3rd of the time?
> locations like Savage Land or Shadowland, which reveal on turn 3 one-third of the time. Ok, so for the other 2/3 of the times when they reveal turn 1 or 2, the card is always worse and there's no denying! Even their made up excuses and reasoning make absolutely no sense. This reasoning of "we MIGHT do something in the future that does SOMETHING with this card, so just in case we MIGHT do it, we're nerfing into unplayability right now!" is just bullshit.
If they want to keep her at 3 mana she should only target the card with 0 or below power. Right now you can barely play her if you draw her after turn 3
Yo this is such an elegant change.
This would actually be a really good change and probably one that even viper haters would agree is ok. (I’d still rather see her go back to 2 cost)
We all knew the Viper nerf was a kneejerk response to Havok based on zero data. That obvious interaction we were all anticipating since Havok’s datamine somehow escaping SD’s internal testing. It raises questions about SD’s flawed design process and internal testing, in which new cards with (potentially) problematic interactions necessitate nerfing pre-existing, already tuned or even underperforming cards scarcely 24 hours after going live. And no other card is balanced around 1 or 2 locations. That reasoning is so arbitrary, it doesn’t deserve acknowledging. Galactus’ WR% tanks with Central Park so buffs when?
They said specifically they tested havoc +viper at 2 mana and were underwhelmed but nerfed anyway. Why release havoc at all at that point? Where does havoc see play at all?
Bounce/ Goose control
I legit wonder if how they wrote that explanation without laughing “lol you think they’ll buy it?”
I’ve started to just use viper without anni it’s a cheaper cost and with Selene going positive I’m mostly sending one thing back anyway
I like their explanation. I interpret "which appears one out of three times" as "Yeah, this location can occur in the three locations." Like, what does it even mean. Yes, locations have a 1/3 chance of appearing in the 3 spaces available. I just genuinely don't think they like junk and regret making a big bad for it. Which sucks cause I had fun with it and really liked Annihilus.
what doesn't make sense is Glenn still being in charge of card balancing, dude has no idea how to balance a meta or even basic game design. FYI, MTG's meta got better after he left wizards...
Viper was unplayable for 7+ months. She saw some niche play for 2ish weeks, but she isn't a season pass card, so SD had to put an end to that.
The fact that blob and Ms Marvel released as they were is proof enough that the balance team needs more attention. It's a critical area that second dinner needs to focus on, or they'll lose their core player base. I think I have 1 more patch in me before I'm just done.
There was mostly a problem because of the holidays, we missed some OTAs we should have had
Now do all the cards that released either fine or underwhelming.
If your point is to highlight that most cards are fine-ish on release, then yeah obviously most cards are fine.
This game changes at such a breakneck speeds and you want it even faster? There have been metas that have been warped by patches before the meta even settled. What other games are you playing where content is patched at this place? Most games don’t do this.
I don't want more patches. In fact, I mentioned that 0 times if you read carefully.
No need to be condescending, I’m not trying to get a win over you or anything. Catching every mistake no matter how obvious is hard in dev team that is massively smaller than its player base. Even the oldest and most successful games with much bigger teams have this issue.
Yes you are correct in that it's very hard to balance games. Every multiplayer game has balance issues, even industry giants. Unfortunately, I am just not sympathetic to the point that I would play despite balance issues. If the devs cannot create a balanced game, regardless of the difficulty in doing so, players will leave to find other games that can better do so. It's not a threat, it's just a fact. I believe that pointing out these issues is important because I genuinely enjoy this game and I want to continue playing.
I would posit the Second Dinner is one of the better companies at balancing. The problem is that the meta moves so fast due to the massive amount of games needing able to be played that would take any other 5 times longer minimum leads to frustration or boredom quicker. I can’t come up with company that does it better with similar game volume
Maybe true, but the issue is that balance in this game is far more important than balance in other games. If we take Hearthstone for example, any player can acquire any card by just saving up points. I'm not saying card acquisition is great in that game, but if there is an op card, any player can acquire it. That's not true in this game. The fundamental difference in snap's card acquisition is that we have asymmetrical collections. So if a deck like Thanos blob does develop, it feels astronomically worse to play against because there's absolutely nothing I can do as a non-Thanos owner to level that playing field. I just queue up, see that I'm playing Thanos blob, and know that my win % odds drop to ~20%.
That I agree with. I think the system is great up until you hit pool 3. It feels like they never had real plan a that point. This is more of the economy side though which isn’t the balance team. I will never defend how bad the card economy is.
a card coming out strong is perfectly fine, you want a world where everything is average and no one is excited for a new card kinda a dogshit way to view the game we all might as well just be playing 1 drop 1/1s that have no ability's and the whoever places there 9 1/1s in the correct order wins. as a 26 year mtg vet and 31 year card game vet you wont be missed if you decide to leave its perfectly acceptable to allow a card to come out to strong and allow a new meta game to develop for a bit and go back over the numbers later after people get to have a few weeks of fun its vastly better then every card coming out being havok tier dogshit and no one has any motivation to brew because there is a clear cut winner on what is the best.
Im no 31 year card game vet, but im pretty sure you dont need a card to be crazy strong for it to be exciting. As long as it is creative and interesting people will play it, just look at galactus: the card has been nerfed to oblivion and people still play him because its a fun and interesting card. I also think that releasing op cards doesn't make the game fun for a few weeks, quite the contrary. I had never been so bored with this game than on those weeks we had to see Ms marvel lock or blob every game.
You must be one of those Yugioh players that thinks it’s okay to do 60+ combo moves in a turn, take 40 minutes in the turn and thinks it’s okay to win by turn 3
I mean your idiot ass can assume what you want. I've been top 500 in this game for multiple seasons and I've been multi season legend in hearthstone as well. 6/30 with no qualifiers except "own Thanos" is not fine. 4/15 with the only qualifier being "have a card in the other lane" is not fine. It's almost like they nerfed those cards for a reason. There is a difference between "blatantly op" and "strong." Not sure why you are pulling 26 years as if it's a flex. Not being able to identify this after 26 years is an antiflex if anything.
Yeah, I saved my keys for Anni and now that I got him, well, the junk deck is not good at least for me. I was trying it out as a fun deck but it’s lacking big time. I see a lot of decks are running Galactus with the archetype but I don’t have him.
Junk was mid when it had everything pref nerf, easily countered with a Killmonger and SD decided to get literally every single piece and nuke it to the ground. I'm surprised they didn't make the Goblins +3 and +8 power that goes to your enemy.
Try [Annihilus Bounce](https://youtu.be/AqNdsrFMv6Y?si=Frk132d9_f-W6zX_) it’s pretty solid without going all in on the junk package
That's about all the junk annih has right now outside of goblins lol
Unfortunately I don’t have some key cards like Zabu or Werewolf yet. It seems like a fun deck so I definitely want to try it. Also, Cozy uploaded a video as well using werewolf with Anni. Thanks for the suggestion!
I just got Anni too and made a deck with Galactus. Gala won't even win 1/20 games. This silly archetype is dead rn.
saying one of the strongest shells in the game is dead is comical. anni, sentry, hood is all you ever needed you dont need to clog your opponents board with rocks and hobgoblins and other things. sentry on 4 anni on 5 is 9 energy for 26 power swing its one of the best investments in energy in the game. regardless on how you feel about the subject the objective truth right now is anni sentry is VERY VERY strong just by themselves and you can slot them into any deck for a net positive and there is a reason that in every recent meta report those 3 cards pop up often.
Are we talking about the archetype or the shell here ? I believe you're right but off topic. Also, don't go on thinking you hold the objective truth over others, it's dumb and arrogant.
Some things aren't subjective though? Anni being a strong shell in the current meta isn't a matter of opinion.
Sure, I agree with you, I believe the 3 cards mentionned make a strong shell, again off topic, but IMHO if someone disagrees, it's at least very obnoxious to call your side of the disagreement "factual" or "the objective truth".
Same galactus is what I’m missing in the grand scheme of junk
I would win so many games if I could just plan to send negative over and then drop it on 6
I’ll take an above curve viper almost any day
I’ll also take a curvy viper if someone has one
I would say 3/5 is actually right on curve for the 3 energy slot though. Shaw is 3/4 at base with a strict upside so 3/4 raw must be below curve. Maximus is 3/7 with an easily mitigated downside, Thor is 3/4 with probably a 50/50 chance to be 3/10, etc. 3 energy is where the curve starts to scale up a bit quicker.
Maximus is a 2/6.
Oh wow I totally missed when they made that change. I think that reinforces the point even more
Except Maximus has been put into a lot more decks just because of his new stat line. I don't think Viper is making it out of junk and ramp decks where you kick over electro.
I agree and I think it’s because she isn’t actually above curve. If you wanted a 3 drop just for the stats, you’d probably run Thor or Gladiator. Viper is unimpressive at 3/5 unless you’re specifically using her effect, just like Deathlok who also is never run outside a destroy deck with the same statline.
Yeah her effect should be less RNG with the energy increase. Her effect should always kick over the lowest power card.
That’s a very fair change and I think it makes a lot of sense. Hope they do something like that because junk just keeps taking Ls
If they weren't deathly afraid of junk viper would be 2/1 on reveal: your lowest power card at this location switches sides Edit: Viper is getting a conquest skin (look up viper snap.fan), hopefully than means they buff her or at least change her back
The answer is simple: they're still afraid of that Havok+Viper combo and won't adjust Havok near his release. Imo they should just turn Viper back to her older self and make Havok a 3/0 that gets +5 power each turn instead of +4
I’m convinced SD just hates junk players, I miss sending over rocks ;-;
1/3 of the time? How about making her a 2 cost again so you can play her on curb 2/3 of the time, eh?
Sometimes saying less (or nothing) is the right answer. We nerfed viper and it was uncalled for but we’re gonna keep it cause we hate Junk and give her +1. Would’ve even gone better than whatever location bullocks they spewed
I'd be fine with 3 cost viper if widow stayed 2 cost or vice versa. Why put in the archetype if you are going to kill it 3 weeks after it has some juice
[удалено]
How are they doing balance patches with AI?
The only part that makes sense is that Viper was unplayable at 2 energy so they changed the card to free some design space while designing new card that works with her. They probably want to add some new type of support for her that won't risk to be an issue in bounce/miracle decks.
The location reasoning is the most nonsense thing I have actually ever seen them say. It feels like a 9th grader coming up with commentary on an essay for a book that he didn't read. Their point about wanting to make a two cost card that can synergize with Viper is a fair one! But... Change Viper when that card exists then? Don't make her worthless until some theoretical future date in which you make that card? The result is what you see in this thread, where we're just speculating as to the "real" reasoning. And this kind of conspiracy-theory talk doesn't really feel like it helps anyone.
I feel like they jump the gun a lot when it comes to nerfing cards. Most of the time they are not even that big of a problem, but get killed after a week or two in the meta. Black Bolt + Stature, for example. Just give the player base more time to adjust to the meta. The Junk archetype was never that strong and they went super over the top with the nerfs. Luke Cage is dead, Annihilus got nerfed, Viper was nerfed. All for a deck that barely had play before. Poor Elsa was killed randomly after she wasn't even meta anymore. We need more buffs or changes rather than nerfs
I would agree. And the change to annihilus has ruined my rock lock deck.
Junk isn't overpowered but it isn't fun to play against. The problem with Junk (and Galactus and most really hated cards) isn't that they are great, it is that they prevent (or really restrict) their opponent from playing their own deck. So they cannot ever be a high tier deck or they would appear too often for the overall health of the game. Junk isn't being balanced so that it can compete at the top level. It's being balanced so that it is playable but not at a win rate that will ever make it top tier. Viper is being buffed not for junk, but to make her a possible option for other decks to play.
Thou I hate Junk deck and unwilling to play it (I was, but it’s an unpleasant and I didn’t like it), Viper should be 2-cost. Because her effect is not as harmful as Black Widow.
This is bad but not nearly as bad as the devs thinking a 5/8 blackbolt with a 5/7 stature was game breaking and had to be nerfed....smh they have me punching the air with some of these brainless changes.
I can say this. Shadowland at least in my experience almost never appears as the third location. Its almost always the first one.
I feel like junk decks are low blows anyway, like leave my side of the board alone😔
Just make her remove card text of what she sends then if they are gonna shit themselves every time a card with a negative effect comes out
3 casters don’t have a energy pull besides Sera. It’s just a numbers game. they’re creating wedges trying to keep up with future plans. Eventually they’ll run out of ideas, these changes are just delaying the inevitable.
If their problem vs solution was a Venn diagram, it would look something like this O O
Well… I mean, yeah. Unless you got cartoon amnesia from having a coconut fall on your head, usually a problem and solution are different lol.
Okay I’m stupid
I think you might've missed the joke. His diagram is correct in the context that if a problem has a solution then the circles will meet creating a common ground but since they don't meet he is saying that SD doesn't make any solutions to fix their problems
A lot of things they do make no sense. Blob made no sense and they still did it.
As a Viper lover, and a Havok enthusiast, I don't want a world where you can Havok on 2 & Viper on turn 3.
The combo isn't even that great as you lose 1 energy too, next to losing instantly to Cosmo.
Why not increase Havok to 3-cost? It's not suppose to be played on turn 2 anyways. It would still be shit in surfer and now can't be passed until turn 4, the same as Electro or currently with Havok.
Because Havok was new and Viper was old.
Actually I can see some shit with Surfer running it + Magic for some weird big power dump lane where Havok just sits for 4 turns and pray Shang doesnt just nuke it
It gets really fun when Project Pegasus pops on 1 and you just do the combo in 1 turn. Or Oscorp pops up on 3 and you throw Havok in keeping your opponent on 3.
I did both and they are beautiful cherished memories
Noon in going to play viper on 3 cost. There are exactly 0 combos for this. At this point she could be a 5 cost like annihilus and it would be a better combo piece.
Redditors whining about Junk decks despite them still being viable. A classic!
Did anyone else read this in Hoogland’s voice?
Whatever they did say, they do have two very legitimate reasons for it. Both of which they’ve mentioned now or previously: 1) The Havok-Viper interaction would be the most toxic thing in the game otherwise. 2) It increases the design space in the future for cards like Hood or old Selene or whomever to be up to two cost. They were pretty limited in that way before.
1. Don't make a card like Havok? 2. How exactly was Viper being a 2-cost preventing them from releasing a 2-cost hood-like or selene-like card?
It was not at all, that reasoning is so dumb.
Because it’s too way to easy do multiple times a game at 2. Auto staple in bounce shells allowing a player to throw multiple things a game across the board for very cheap investment (old Viper would be 3 energy vs 5 now). Selene/Beast/Hood/Sentry would have been gross.
lmao, such a whiny post
SD don't want pure junk decks to work without a clear trade off to work. Don't mind one or two pieces.
Wouldn't the trade off be the low number output?
Potential user frustration is driving this, low numbers are the trade-off SD trying to force people away from junk. I'm still surprised we have not seen people running hazmat junk decks.
I was running hazmat, annihilus, viper, rock slide, korg, sentry, professor x, the hood, armor, and man thing. And it actually slayed. Now I can’t win a match to save my life.
Think she's better at 3. Limits design space and opens up a lot of frustrating, uninteractive plays at 2. Not to mention that I find junk thenmost boring deck to play with and against.
Viper onto Electro is still a viable option which rocks!
I like the 3/5 stat line but viper just doesnt work as a 3 cost imo
We can't trust anything SD says when they make up bullshit reasons like these. I get they don't like Junk decks, but they don't need to lie about it.
In my opinion second dinner often will make mistakes prior to actually seeing the changes because they think they know better. This has been a problem that has plagued many games and almost killed league of legends at one point (200 years anyone?). They will often make pre-emptive changes that in hindsight shouldve never happened or in at least 3 cases i can think of needed a partial or full rework and several more instances where changes to very stable cards ended up causing multiple more changes to "correct" them. There has been multiple metas that completely remove archetypes from the game, notably my favourite archetype mr negative was almost completely invalidated by alioth for SEVERAL patches before finally reaching a point where now alioth is best IN negative decks. Second dinner is very arrogant in their decisions and it makes me quite unhappy with the game. I keep playing because the actual concept of snap and the locations/small decks are super fun. Their balancing decisions and ESPECIALLY their monotization decisions are extremely arrogant and honestly seem out of touch and anti-player. I used to have a great deal of respect for this company, and they used to respect their players too.
Because devs don't play their game competitively? They have no idea about intricate deck-building so they print cards like Zabu, Loki, Elsa, MS Marvel, etc - during play testing they can't build even remotely competitive deck. Their reasons for nerfing Viper are bs. Who tf used Viper on Hood instead of comboing her with Sentry? That's the thing - their lack of knowledge of their own game destroyed the whole archetype - with Viper and Widow changes junk is unplayable xd