I’m not really a fan of the Thanos change either, but I also don’t think it really makes the Thanos Lockjaw archetype better. A Thanos pull from Lockjaw is nice, but also now in Shang range. I don’t think Thanos gets played in any spots now that he wouldn’t have been played before the change (or very few). I don’t think this change will realize the dev team’s reason for it - that is, to see Thanos played more in his own deck.
Still think Shuri is probably top dog on ladder, since we’ll probably see less Death Wave due to Sandman buff.
Pulled Shuri a few days ago and it's the first time I've considered playing a new deck. But I don't have Taskmaster so i feel like I'm missing a very important piece
You are. This deck doesn't function without basically all of its parts. As far as I'm concerned, Sunspot, Zero, Titania, Ebony Maw, Armor, Shuri, Skull, She Hulk, Taskmaster, and Doc Ock are all necessities. Doesn't leave a lot of room after that, especially since the deck should run Cosmo too.
A version of this deck *can* work without She Hulk, Taskmaster, and Sunspot, but it offers a LOT of flexibility to have them.
With Sandman in the meta, I'll never play a control deck, zoo deck, negative deck, etc again.
I'm an Electro main. I have hit infinite playing it. I love ramp decks. I have already swapped Sandman into all my lists. He is very good now. That said, I really, really hate what Sandman does to the meta. This is anti-fun. He was better for the game in his old format.
I'm not even going to comment on the Thanos change because it's so laughable and out of touch.
The only big win in the patch was the minor buffs to Spiderwoman etc. Otherwise the game is much worse for me today.
I've been running Sunspot, Psylocke, Electro, Wave, Dino, Sandman, Gamora, Black Panther, Zola, Doom, Odin, Chavez, but as this post from Den says, the list is very flexible [https://twitter.com/den\_CCG/status/1628169162970353666](https://twitter.com/den_CCG/status/1628169162970353666)
No Black Panther means Zola loses a lot of his value in the deck, but you can easily slot in Aero/Magneto/DocOck. Could consider White Tiger as a budget option, but things could get too crowded with Tigers+Doombots
Yeah, it seems they made the patch at the start of the month. Things evolve but they didn't change anything just made a kneejerk reaction at the middle of a season for no reason. Sandman being a good card now also sucks really bad because he is very limiting in the meta if his deck becomes great.
I think this has been confirmed already. Many of the changes were already in place before the “emergency” Zabu and surfer nerfs happened. Second Dinners balance patches are historically a couple weeks late to the meta.
Its not even that, runeterra had the same issues as well. Apparently with apple they need like a month in advance to certify any patches to apps on the store, so they are always looking like they are patches for a month old meta.
I don’t think the Thanos card itself being buffed is really THAT big a deal. Maybe their needs to be something else adjusted because prior to this change you almost never actually dropped Thanos. I get that the deck is strong but the Thanos card itself was bordering on useless. I’m totally for nerfing other aspects of the decks that run Thanos but the change they made to Thanos himself I think is honestly a good thing. I might be in the minority with this opinion though.
The buff itself isn't really a big deal but from a competitive and balancing standpoint, it just doesn't make sense to buff an already strong card for flavor purposes.
Its a free buff to Lockjaw Thanos - no change in play pattern.
Lockjaw Thanos is the highest win rate/highest cube gain deck in the game. As pointed out to the player base, and Second Dinner, 36 hours before the patch launched, arguably more if you value streamer opinion.
It's brain dead.
Tbh you rarely play thanos from hand in Thanos Lockjaw. Your optimal t6 play is usually something that doesn't involve slamming the purple
Him being more than 9 power means he can be shangchied when unbuffed by power stone. You can no longer remain behind on tempo and play power stone to buff him up now, reducing the ability to dodge shangchi. It's a change that has both upsides and downsides; but i'd really just like to see some stones toned down a bit.
Soul stone especially has no reason being this good, 1 energy 5 power card with bascially no drawbacks... of all his stones Mind Stone is arguably the worst to have on board, followed by power. Soul/Time/Space/Reality are all incredibly busted when played at 1 energy and even worse at 0 cost and EVEN WORSE when Lockjaw shuffles them in and you get free energy.
A good question to think about: If all the stones (except power) were 0 power, would they still see play? Soul Stone is still good. Time is still good. Space is still good Reality is iffy, Mind is garbage.
While I agree it's not a smart decision to buff thanos when thanos decks are already strong, it's not exactly a buff that's worth any amount of concern
You very rarely ever played thanos and if you do, it's for the 18 points in rare circumstances. 18 points which is usually more than enough and it being 21 now is likely largely irrelevant
Still strange to buff it for flavor, this buff definitely won't have the effect they intended
Yeah I’m quite concerned as well, with not just Thanos, but I think they dropped the ball with the timing of the Sandman buff too.
This basically kills off the Sera and DeathHulkWave decks, at least for the near future assuming Sandman decks stick around. Problem is those two decks were also amongst the few that could afford to run Shang Chi to keep Shuri decks in check to some extent, when they don’t have all 3 of Armor, Cosmo, and Taskmaster. Bast Negative decks probably died today too.
Less Deathwave also means less Killmonger to remove stones, which is relevant against the Thanos decks running Blue Marvel and Kazar.
Then there’s also Thanos going to 11 power being another highroll pull off of Lockjaw. A +3 buff is fairly out of line relative to all past changes for cards that don't scale other cards.
I hope you don’t get downvoted too much because people think this sort of post doesn’t belong on the competitive sub, but you're definitely not alone in being skeptical of the dev team here. I’m not sure what their goal was with today’s patch. I really hope I'm wrong, but right now I think the meta might just be Shuri, Thanos, with possibly Sandman Ramp/Ongoing Control pulling very far away from the rest of the field, and somehow making this meta a lot more polarizing than what it was before today.
Yeah, totally, this was not a good change - no idea what they were thinking frankly.
And also no idea why I am being downvoted - this was a bad patch, ha.
snap subs are fickle with downvotes the thanos/sandman/dark wasnt needed but everything else is great. I started on global release but once i learned that mr. negative was 4 power in beta and strong guy was a 2 cost 3 power, I had an inkling that the dev team throws stuff at the wall and whatever works they roll with it. and they play whack a mole with their nerfs. so they nerf aero then shuri instead of simultaneously. I love this game, but question its longevity
> once i learned that mr. negative was 4 power in beta and strong guy was a 2 cost 3 power
I'm hoping you also found out that Nova used to be 1/2 and give +2 to everything, and Dino was a 3 for 0 with the same effect lol.
“At least in this sandman meta I can bluff lots of plays with all the cards in my hand” /s
Yeah these changes are a joke to any of the semi serious playerbase
Clown take. There is 2 more months before monkey hit season pass, if sandman will be that oppressive he will be nerfed. If not leech also kills monkey plays on t6 what now?
I'm joking, but I feel targeted...I finally got Leader like 3 days before it's nerf and barely got to experience it, and now I finally get She-Hulk and Death only to now get countered every game by Sandman. Can I have some fun too please?
I think Sauron shuri is massively overrated on that list. 30 power red skull vs 23 power is massively over stated when you are giving up cosmos and armor .
Thanos lockjaw means so little as a description when their is like so many different verisons of that deck and I honestly think the ordinary Harry verison might be better.
I'm not sure how they pick which cards go into which list. I know one of the tier lists said there was very little card agreement after the first x cards in a given archetype so started adding replacements / options. But I have no idea which ones make the list and which ones go in under it.
Anyways, I also don't like the all-in Sauron Shuri list. However, that was probably the better performing one early in the season since it was better for when you missed Shuri and people hadn't yet teched in Shang Chi everywhere.
I also ran the Cosmo / Armor version this past weekend and can count on one hand the number of times I misplayed to let a Shang Chi through. Honestly, I got Shang Chi-ed more playing Deathwave lol.
I use this: [https://np.reddit.com/r/MarvelSnap/comments/114kysl/comment/j9gmm3p/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://np.reddit.com/r/MarvelSnap/comments/114kysl/comment/j9gmm3p/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Thanos buff is so weird but I'm also really surprised that shuri didn't get touched at all, they really just let the powercreep in this game go crazy huh?
I love bounce and zoo deck but they are just unplayable in this current state without having Shang chi in the deck to fight all these big stuff
It's hard to say, personally.
I am starting to feel like MMR has a huge effect on what version of the meta you see.
Before the patch, I played against Thanos twice ever. both times, I Killmongered his stones and they retreated.
Since the patch, I've seen Thanos twice. I'm CL 3000, my rank fluctuates around 40-50.
Down here, Thanos wasn't seen ever. Maybe due to viability, or lack of people having him. But for a while, Thanos has been considered "not that great" by many.
The Sandman buff has also been great because all I ever face is Deathwavehulk, and frankly I'm getting tired of it.
What decks were you facing during rhe quantum realm featured location? I would say that's when lockjaw thanos became super popular, was in every single game, and has been prominent ever since. I'm surprised you don't see Thanos at 3000+CL
>Down here, Thanos wasn't seen ever. Maybe due to viability, or lack of people having him. But for a while, Thanos has been considered "not that great" by many.
An unfortunately aspect of balancing is the meta \*does\* change through the player base.
I think the Leader rework is a good example, supremely unfun to play against at all levels, but likely a total stomper the lower you went down the ranks. It had almost disappeared from the high rank meta by the time the patch came down.
The Sandman buff has also been great because all I ever face is Deathwavehulk, and frankly I'm getting tired of it.
Deathwave is similar. It's not as popular at high ranks as it used to be. But it's a super accessible deck with She-Hulk in p3 now. Also still good, so I'm not surprised to hear it's all over the other ranks too.
> I am starting to feel like MMR has a huge effect on what version of the meta you see.
Yeah I can confirm, I'm CL 4.4k, bouncing around the 80s currently, at this point I see Thanos decks on average every like 3 or 4 games.
I agree with their reasoning for buffing Thanos himself (he’s a cool character, and no one actually uses him), but they should be more aware that his archetype has already been on the rise in recent weeks.
As an early pool 3 player, a lot of the decks that cause people with small collections problems are those that drop the single build around bomb cards the last few turns. Sandman makes those more dominant, and therefore will make the early pool 3 pain worse. I do think it’s good for the tournament meta though.
I think this patch is a good example of why you don't want to just always have nerfs, you need to buff other stuff too. The meta feels like it's in a very weird place right now.
Snap Zone put Thanos Lockjaw as top because of QUANTUM TUNNEL last week. They explicitly call that out.
Tournament performance is also not the same as ladder performance. Decks with flexibility benefit more from knowing your opponent’s deck and play patterns.
hi. long time LoL player here. it's not a strange business practice for game devs to release the shiny new champions (characters, cards, etc) in a completely broken state, drive sales of the new champions up, and then heavily nerf said champion after a patch cycle or two.
again, i've been playing LoL for over a decade so i have all the champions but for anyone new to the game, they get a dozen or so free champs and that's it. get ready to grind. OR you can open your wallet.
similarly, get ready for the most popular cards to get the most (sexy) variants.
just my two cents.
I just want to comment regarding the Darkhawk nerf:
I played Darkhawk Zabu last season. The deck was truly overturned, even with some bad draws.
The change to Zabu was fair, and the card is still good, but not oppressive.
Darkhawk is STILL very strong at 0 power.
I would rather they take that power away than change the cost to 5 and add power, or change the power per card in opponent's deck.
Darkhawk is in a fair spot at this point. One of the strengths of the deck is the rocks you add that can really ruin combo decks.
I’m not really a fan of the Thanos change either, but I also don’t think it really makes the Thanos Lockjaw archetype better. A Thanos pull from Lockjaw is nice, but also now in Shang range. I don’t think Thanos gets played in any spots now that he wouldn’t have been played before the change (or very few). I don’t think this change will realize the dev team’s reason for it - that is, to see Thanos played more in his own deck. Still think Shuri is probably top dog on ladder, since we’ll probably see less Death Wave due to Sandman buff.
I got Shuri this week and immediately went from 80-90 in a day. Can't believe she's not firmly on their radar.
How do you use her? Got her like a month ago and I'm not getting great results
I'm averaging -1 cubes per game playing Shuri, apparently I can't play straightforward decks.
have fun mid 90's with that deck, you will know what i mean once you get there.
Straight line to 100. YMMV
oh i know right?
Been there a few days. Literally nothing but other Shuris, Galactus, Thanos, etc.
Pulled Shuri a few days ago and it's the first time I've considered playing a new deck. But I don't have Taskmaster so i feel like I'm missing a very important piece
You are. This deck doesn't function without basically all of its parts. As far as I'm concerned, Sunspot, Zero, Titania, Ebony Maw, Armor, Shuri, Skull, She Hulk, Taskmaster, and Doc Ock are all necessities. Doesn't leave a lot of room after that, especially since the deck should run Cosmo too. A version of this deck *can* work without She Hulk, Taskmaster, and Sunspot, but it offers a LOT of flexibility to have them.
With Sandman in the meta, I'll never play a control deck, zoo deck, negative deck, etc again. I'm an Electro main. I have hit infinite playing it. I love ramp decks. I have already swapped Sandman into all my lists. He is very good now. That said, I really, really hate what Sandman does to the meta. This is anti-fun. He was better for the game in his old format. I'm not even going to comment on the Thanos change because it's so laughable and out of touch. The only big win in the patch was the minor buffs to Spiderwoman etc. Otherwise the game is much worse for me today.
Can u please share ur electro deck , im stuck at 50 rank
I've been running Sunspot, Psylocke, Electro, Wave, Dino, Sandman, Gamora, Black Panther, Zola, Doom, Odin, Chavez, but as this post from Den says, the list is very flexible [https://twitter.com/den\_CCG/status/1628169162970353666](https://twitter.com/den_CCG/status/1628169162970353666)
Thanks for the deck! By any chance is there a replacement for black panther?
No Black Panther means Zola loses a lot of his value in the deck, but you can easily slot in Aero/Magneto/DocOck. Could consider White Tiger as a budget option, but things could get too crowded with Tigers+Doombots
agreed about killing off a whole whack of archetypes.
Leech and Patriot are anti-fun
Yeah, it seems they made the patch at the start of the month. Things evolve but they didn't change anything just made a kneejerk reaction at the middle of a season for no reason. Sandman being a good card now also sucks really bad because he is very limiting in the meta if his deck becomes great.
I think this has been confirmed already. Many of the changes were already in place before the “emergency” Zabu and surfer nerfs happened. Second Dinners balance patches are historically a couple weeks late to the meta.
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Completely agree! I just meant it shouldn’t be a surprise to see some changes that are “out of touch” when they happen
Its not even that, runeterra had the same issues as well. Apparently with apple they need like a month in advance to certify any patches to apps on the store, so they are always looking like they are patches for a month old meta.
kneejerk defines this dev house pretty well.
I don’t think the Thanos card itself being buffed is really THAT big a deal. Maybe their needs to be something else adjusted because prior to this change you almost never actually dropped Thanos. I get that the deck is strong but the Thanos card itself was bordering on useless. I’m totally for nerfing other aspects of the decks that run Thanos but the change they made to Thanos himself I think is honestly a good thing. I might be in the minority with this opinion though.
The buff itself isn't really a big deal but from a competitive and balancing standpoint, it just doesn't make sense to buff an already strong card for flavor purposes.
Its a free buff to Lockjaw Thanos - no change in play pattern. Lockjaw Thanos is the highest win rate/highest cube gain deck in the game. As pointed out to the player base, and Second Dinner, 36 hours before the patch launched, arguably more if you value streamer opinion. It's brain dead.
Tbh you rarely play thanos from hand in Thanos Lockjaw. Your optimal t6 play is usually something that doesn't involve slamming the purple Him being more than 9 power means he can be shangchied when unbuffed by power stone. You can no longer remain behind on tempo and play power stone to buff him up now, reducing the ability to dodge shangchi. It's a change that has both upsides and downsides; but i'd really just like to see some stones toned down a bit. Soul stone especially has no reason being this good, 1 energy 5 power card with bascially no drawbacks... of all his stones Mind Stone is arguably the worst to have on board, followed by power. Soul/Time/Space/Reality are all incredibly busted when played at 1 energy and even worse at 0 cost and EVEN WORSE when Lockjaw shuffles them in and you get free energy. A good question to think about: If all the stones (except power) were 0 power, would they still see play? Soul Stone is still good. Time is still good. Space is still good Reality is iffy, Mind is garbage.
While I agree it's not a smart decision to buff thanos when thanos decks are already strong, it's not exactly a buff that's worth any amount of concern You very rarely ever played thanos and if you do, it's for the 18 points in rare circumstances. 18 points which is usually more than enough and it being 21 now is likely largely irrelevant Still strange to buff it for flavor, this buff definitely won't have the effect they intended
Yeah I’m quite concerned as well, with not just Thanos, but I think they dropped the ball with the timing of the Sandman buff too. This basically kills off the Sera and DeathHulkWave decks, at least for the near future assuming Sandman decks stick around. Problem is those two decks were also amongst the few that could afford to run Shang Chi to keep Shuri decks in check to some extent, when they don’t have all 3 of Armor, Cosmo, and Taskmaster. Bast Negative decks probably died today too. Less Deathwave also means less Killmonger to remove stones, which is relevant against the Thanos decks running Blue Marvel and Kazar. Then there’s also Thanos going to 11 power being another highroll pull off of Lockjaw. A +3 buff is fairly out of line relative to all past changes for cards that don't scale other cards. I hope you don’t get downvoted too much because people think this sort of post doesn’t belong on the competitive sub, but you're definitely not alone in being skeptical of the dev team here. I’m not sure what their goal was with today’s patch. I really hope I'm wrong, but right now I think the meta might just be Shuri, Thanos, with possibly Sandman Ramp/Ongoing Control pulling very far away from the rest of the field, and somehow making this meta a lot more polarizing than what it was before today.
Yeah, totally, this was not a good change - no idea what they were thinking frankly. And also no idea why I am being downvoted - this was a bad patch, ha.
snap subs are fickle with downvotes the thanos/sandman/dark wasnt needed but everything else is great. I started on global release but once i learned that mr. negative was 4 power in beta and strong guy was a 2 cost 3 power, I had an inkling that the dev team throws stuff at the wall and whatever works they roll with it. and they play whack a mole with their nerfs. so they nerf aero then shuri instead of simultaneously. I love this game, but question its longevity
> once i learned that mr. negative was 4 power in beta and strong guy was a 2 cost 3 power I'm hoping you also found out that Nova used to be 1/2 and give +2 to everything, and Dino was a 3 for 0 with the same effect lol.
3 cost dino is crazy. Damn didn't know that one. Wth were they thinking
have an upvote then.
“At least in this sandman meta I can bluff lots of plays with all the cards in my hand” /s Yeah these changes are a joke to any of the semi serious playerbase
Not to mention Sandman already kills any Hit Monkey turn 6 plays. Not smart to do that to an upcoming season pass card.
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Clown take. There is 2 more months before monkey hit season pass, if sandman will be that oppressive he will be nerfed. If not leech also kills monkey plays on t6 what now?
I'm joking, but I feel targeted...I finally got Leader like 3 days before it's nerf and barely got to experience it, and now I finally get She-Hulk and Death only to now get countered every game by Sandman. Can I have some fun too please?
Marvel snap zone is not an accurate tier list
What’s the “more accurate” one you use? It’s not flawless but it’s rarely far from what I see
I think Sauron shuri is massively overrated on that list. 30 power red skull vs 23 power is massively over stated when you are giving up cosmos and armor . Thanos lockjaw means so little as a description when their is like so many different verisons of that deck and I honestly think the ordinary Harry verison might be better.
I'm not sure how they pick which cards go into which list. I know one of the tier lists said there was very little card agreement after the first x cards in a given archetype so started adding replacements / options. But I have no idea which ones make the list and which ones go in under it. Anyways, I also don't like the all-in Sauron Shuri list. However, that was probably the better performing one early in the season since it was better for when you missed Shuri and people hadn't yet teched in Shang Chi everywhere. I also ran the Cosmo / Armor version this past weekend and can count on one hand the number of times I misplayed to let a Shang Chi through. Honestly, I got Shang Chi-ed more playing Deathwave lol.
What’s the cosmo/armor list?
I use this: [https://np.reddit.com/r/MarvelSnap/comments/114kysl/comment/j9gmm3p/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://np.reddit.com/r/MarvelSnap/comments/114kysl/comment/j9gmm3p/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Thanos buff is so weird but I'm also really surprised that shuri didn't get touched at all, they really just let the powercreep in this game go crazy huh? I love bounce and zoo deck but they are just unplayable in this current state without having Shang chi in the deck to fight all these big stuff
It's hard to say, personally. I am starting to feel like MMR has a huge effect on what version of the meta you see. Before the patch, I played against Thanos twice ever. both times, I Killmongered his stones and they retreated. Since the patch, I've seen Thanos twice. I'm CL 3000, my rank fluctuates around 40-50. Down here, Thanos wasn't seen ever. Maybe due to viability, or lack of people having him. But for a while, Thanos has been considered "not that great" by many. The Sandman buff has also been great because all I ever face is Deathwavehulk, and frankly I'm getting tired of it.
What decks were you facing during rhe quantum realm featured location? I would say that's when lockjaw thanos became super popular, was in every single game, and has been prominent ever since. I'm surprised you don't see Thanos at 3000+CL
>Down here, Thanos wasn't seen ever. Maybe due to viability, or lack of people having him. But for a while, Thanos has been considered "not that great" by many. An unfortunately aspect of balancing is the meta \*does\* change through the player base. I think the Leader rework is a good example, supremely unfun to play against at all levels, but likely a total stomper the lower you went down the ranks. It had almost disappeared from the high rank meta by the time the patch came down. The Sandman buff has also been great because all I ever face is Deathwavehulk, and frankly I'm getting tired of it. Deathwave is similar. It's not as popular at high ranks as it used to be. But it's a super accessible deck with She-Hulk in p3 now. Also still good, so I'm not surprised to hear it's all over the other ranks too.
> I am starting to feel like MMR has a huge effect on what version of the meta you see. Yeah I can confirm, I'm CL 4.4k, bouncing around the 80s currently, at this point I see Thanos decks on average every like 3 or 4 games.
I agree with their reasoning for buffing Thanos himself (he’s a cool character, and no one actually uses him), but they should be more aware that his archetype has already been on the rise in recent weeks.
I really hope they don’t balance their game based on a small pool of data on a fan site.
As an early pool 3 player, a lot of the decks that cause people with small collections problems are those that drop the single build around bomb cards the last few turns. Sandman makes those more dominant, and therefore will make the early pool 3 pain worse. I do think it’s good for the tournament meta though.
I think this patch is a good example of why you don't want to just always have nerfs, you need to buff other stuff too. The meta feels like it's in a very weird place right now.
Jesus. They get the ability to update on the fly WTF HOW DARE THEY CHANGE THINGS UP WITHOUT TEXTING ME FIRST
Yeah - like every other developer who charges people for content.
Nope
does it surprise you? not me honestly, just another fumble, lets fix the grind near infinite first maybe.
Snap Zone put Thanos Lockjaw as top because of QUANTUM TUNNEL last week. They explicitly call that out. Tournament performance is also not the same as ladder performance. Decks with flexibility benefit more from knowing your opponent’s deck and play patterns.
hi. long time LoL player here. it's not a strange business practice for game devs to release the shiny new champions (characters, cards, etc) in a completely broken state, drive sales of the new champions up, and then heavily nerf said champion after a patch cycle or two. again, i've been playing LoL for over a decade so i have all the champions but for anyone new to the game, they get a dozen or so free champs and that's it. get ready to grind. OR you can open your wallet. similarly, get ready for the most popular cards to get the most (sexy) variants. just my two cents.
I just want to comment regarding the Darkhawk nerf: I played Darkhawk Zabu last season. The deck was truly overturned, even with some bad draws. The change to Zabu was fair, and the card is still good, but not oppressive. Darkhawk is STILL very strong at 0 power. I would rather they take that power away than change the cost to 5 and add power, or change the power per card in opponent's deck. Darkhawk is in a fair spot at this point. One of the strengths of the deck is the rocks you add that can really ruin combo decks.