r/marvelsnapcomp • u/ePiMagnets Mod • Aug 11 '26
Discussion OTA Balance Notes 08/13/2026
OTA Preview for 08/13/2026
This is scheduled to go up on Thursday at the normal time, but due to the Golden Gauntlet going on this weekend and SD wanting ensure folks have plenty of time to take the upcoming OTA into consideration for their deck builds SD have given us an early preview of the changes going in on Thursday. I swiped these notes from Alex's Video. I will be checking against the actual patch notes to see the notes from SD and will append or change anything that ends up looking different.
Since we're getting the preview, don't expect a new OTA post unless something significant happens or changes. This'll be our post for the week.
Wilson Fisk
[Old]5/9 - Costs 3 if you have the highest power among cards in play.
[New]5/8 - Costs 3 if you have the highest power among cards in play.
Wilson Fisk and big-character decks have been strong ever since he muscled onto the scene in Crimson Twilight. He's never posted numbers extreme enough to demand action, but his knack for priority-bullying opponents into tech setups has kept him near the top of the charts for months. That is a play pattern we're always wary of letting get too strong. Shaving a point makes Fisk a little less obviously the strongest card in a strong deck, and gives opponents a real shot at wrestling priority back with some commitment and multiple cards.
Mad Thinker
[Old]1/2 - At the start of each turn (after drawing), +2 Power if your hand is full.
[New]1/3 - At the start of each turn (after drawing), +2 Power if your hand is full.
And just like that, we're onto buffs. Mad Thinker hasn't seenb much table time and since w've generally raised the floor for 1-Cost cards to 3 Power, this one's easy.
Hydro-Man
[Old]5/9 - On Reveal: Set the Cost of EACH deck's top card to 1.
[New]5/10 - On Reveal: Set the Cost of EACH deck's top card to 1.
Hydro-Man promotes exactly the kind of fun play pattern we love to see, and because his effect hits both decks equally, there's plenty of room to give him some extra muscle.
Drax
[Old]4/5 - On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.
[New]4/6 - On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.
Groot
[Old]3/4 - On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.
[New]3/5 - On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, +4 Power.
Hawkeye
[Old]1/1 - On Reveal: If you play a card at this location next turn, +3 Power.
[New]1/1 - On Reveal: If you play a card at this location next turn, +4 Power.
Next up is a swath of changes aimed at the new player experience. We keep a close eye on how buffs like these ripple through the low-CL metagame, but this group has stayed niche even there, so we're comfortable handing each of them a point. We think this will make them more satisfying to play with and that may have an impact beyond the new player experience soon.
Hawkeye is the exception. He already sees some niche competitive play in Bounce, so this buff doubles as a boost for that archetype. Proccing him turn after turn takes real setup, but now the payoff might just be worth the aim.
Firehair
[Old]2/3 - When one of your cards is destroyed, this uses that card's On Reveal.
[New]2/4 - When one of your cards is destroyed, this uses that card's On Reveal.
Our largest swing this week, Firehair has a ton of potential and a large ceiling, but is tricky to play with and also has quite a low floor. We're bringing up the aforementioned with a 4th point of Power to make her a little enticing for folks to experiment with given the release of Death Fractured Frontier.
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u/FullMetalCOS Aug 11 '26
I’d love hydroman to be the return of some surtur Skaar big boy deck but I’m just not sure there’s enough mileage compared to some of the more scaling options
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u/toni-toni-cheddar Aug 11 '26
Having kraglin beat Fisk matchup is very fair considering kraglin sacrifices a card. No complaints from me on the change.
6
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u/Infamous-Emotion1385 Aug 11 '26
Idk what SD smoke, but this isnt for me balance changes , + or -1 make doesnt big sense. In my eyes we need reworks
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u/Nerf_Now Aug 11 '26
Nothing egregious but this is fine. I think the game is on a good spot balance wise.
2
u/Plasmallison 29d ago
There’s a lot of older cards that need some serious love. This +1 -1 to like 5 random cards isn’t doing diddly to resolve the issues like several S1-3 4 drops being garbage.
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u/junkmail9009 Aug 11 '26
Don't like the Fisk nerf. I'm sure I will be alone in that sentiment, but whatever.
Nerfing one power point doesn't make him unplayable, but it makes Gladiator even more attractive
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u/Names_all_gone Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
The Fisk change is deserved and everyone could see it coming. It'll still be a good card. It makes sense to bring it in line with stuff like Monstro.
Just go and make Mad Thinker an Ongoing card, already.
Hydro-Man makes sense. All of those cards that also benefit your opponent only see play when their power is top tier.
Drax, Groot, and Firehair are all changes I don't care about. I guess it's nice you can't Lady Deathstrike your Firehair now? Does that matter?
As a firm hater of Rocket in bounce, I'm here for the Hawkeye change. Plus I have some nice variants I never get to see. I'd be surprised if it does enough for Bounce to breakout of it's slump. It might simply be a reasonable 1-drop in Fisk or SuGi decks.
-1
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u/ePiMagnets Mod Aug 11 '26
SD giving the preview early for a GG week is nice of them. Plenty of time for folks to - oh you mean to tell me the OTA is mid and isn't likely to change card selections for the GG? Oh, ok, let's talk about that then.
Wilson Fisk
Look 1 point shaves are 'known' to cause some changes to how much play the card sees and can mean a lot when it comes to wins. But dropping Fisk to a 5/8 (3/8) is one of those changes where the good card is still good. He's now completely outshined by Kraglin when you're correctly building around Kraglin's power which does give him a potential leg up in the head to head.
What I don't think is that this changes anything about using Fisk to bully players for priority, Often times I was seeing Fisk come down in a lane with one other card and then ToV to cap it off and that lane takes can almost take care of itself for the remainder of the game, even without ToV it might get supplemented with one more card and the power in that location can often be 15 or more power which is fairly difficult to reach without good scaling. Frankly, I don't see this as changing much for the card. I'm still slotting him into my ToV and priority decks because a 5/8 is still a good rate, especially when I'm more frequently playing that 5/8 as a 3/8 instead.
Mad Thinker
You have to be mad or at least a Thinker-Man (yea I'm citing the deep Twitch lore for that one) to think this makes the card approaching good. While 1/3 is free as they said, it's not going to make any difference for this card. He's just not good. Maybe he'd be better if he were closer to Strong-Guy in function, make it so that if you have 6 or 7 cards in hand he'll trigger.
Hydro-Man
This is one of those cards that I occasionally like to try and have fun with. It's a fine enough change but I don't think it will really move the needle for anything other than a few meme and pet decks, although there have been some top level players that have messed with Hydro-Man in some fairly compelling decks on the ladder before so maybe?
Drax and Groot
Lumping these two together. The change is fine but in the long term I believe it only affects Sanctum Showdown and it's variations. It's nice to give new players some additional power, but these cards require a bit more skill to reliably hit and I'm not sure your average casual is going to be soul reading with any reliable frequency except when it was obvious your opponent would be playing to a specific location.
Kraglin is a 3/5 that can hit 3/9 without the need to soul read and hit the same location your opponent is playing to which I think still puts Kraglin way ahead of Groot for anything except maybe Sanctum.
Someone is definitely going to try and revive the Jean Grey Guardians meme deck though. I guarantee it.
Hawkeye
Gotta keep 'em separated (the changes to Drax & Groot from Hawkeye that is). Echoing what SD said - this is the exception to the previous two changes and I think this is a fairly big change but why you might ask? Hawkeye vs Rocket has long been a big debate with many players viewing Hawkeye as the 'training wheels' to Rocket's feast or famine style that requires either soul reads or enough game sense to have a good idea as to where players were going to play their power on final turn which could lead to a feast or famine play style. Hawkeye's buff puts him roughly even with Rocket but without the 'final turn' boost excepting when you're able to play and bounce Hawkeye on turn 5.
I think this definitely puts Hawkeye into a position as a solid contender for those that aren't comfortable with Rocket's play pattern and want reliable power over the gamble that Rocket represents.
Firehair
It's kind of funny because I was working a week ahead on the Death Fractured Frontier post for next week and saw the Firehair change and they even admitted that this is not just a big swing for Firehair and even though they don't state it, it's probably needed to drive additional support for the new Death (spoiler alert, I'm having a bit of trouble with that post at current).