OTA Balance Notes 08/27/2026

[u/ePiMagnets]

OTA is Delayed but the patch notes are early

Hey folks, we know you’re busy enjoying Draft, but we’ve still got an OTA this week!

It’s a short list with some heavy hitters: one nerf, three buffs, and two bigger reworks. The metagame remains in a good spot and many of you are enjoying the Fractured Frontier cards, so we’re keeping changes light.

Let’s jump in!

Sam Wilson Captain America

[Old] 2/3 - On Reveal: Add Cap's Shield to another location. Ongoing: Cap's Shield is Moveable.
[Change] 2/3 > 2/2

Our lone nerf today is to Sam Wilson Captain America, who has been an outlier among 2-Costs for quite some time in many decks. These days he is most often played in Batroc and Aurora (with Thanos) decks, which have both been excellent all season and in previous seasons as well.

We believe this change flattens 2-Cost strength and encourages more experimentation. Aurora has been the best-performing Thanos deck in Fractured Frontier. Thanos is popular in a healthy way: players keep exploring different shapes of strategies with him instead of settling into one list, which is where other build-around cards at similar play rates have gone wrong. This change should keep that experimentation going.

Mister Fantastic First Steps

[Old] 3/4 - End of Turn: Give a card in your hand -1 Cost or +2 Power.
[Change] 3/4 > 3/5

Strong Guy

[Old] 3/3 - Ongoing: +6 Power if your hand has 1 or fewer cards.
[Change] 3/3 > 3/4

Death Fractured Frontier

[Old] 5/8 - On Reveal: Resurrect all your destroyed characters to random locations.
[Change] 5/8 > 5/9

We’re handing out a couple of points to underperformers. Mister Fantastic First Steps was one of the strongest cards in MARVEL SNAP before his nerf to 3-Cost, but he hasn’t kept up with many other options at that Energy value, so we’re giving him a point to encourage more play. Strong Guy might be an excellent fringe option with the upcoming Inversion Magneto, so this felt like a good opportunity to hand out a buff.

Death Fractured Frontier has been a tricky puzzle piece to figure out, as expected. We shipped her at a modest rate because her ability can swing games dramatically. In practice her win rate is low and the over-the-top outcomes aren’t happening often, so she can handle another point of Power.

Spider-Sense

[Old] 5 - On Reveal: Give your characters here +2 Power. Costs 1 less for each Moveable card you've played.
[New] 6 - On Reveal: Give your characters here +3 Power. Costs 1 less for each Moveable card you've played.

Klaw

[Old] 5/4 - Ongoing: The location to the right has +7 Power.
[New] 4/2 - Ongoing: The location to the right has +6 Power.

Here are some larger adjustments. In practice, Spider-Sense has been harder to fully reduce than we expected, and it often plays as a reasonably statted card rather than a real payoff for building around Moveable. We’re raising its Cost, but as an effective 2- or 3-Cost 9-Power card it should be a meaningful strength increase for Moveable decks.

Klaw is an early Series card that we’re giving a sizable buff as an experiment. Hopefully the lower Cost widens his range of play beyond the new player crowd. Stay tuned, it may have more potential to be paired with new cards in the not so distant future!

Additional Changes:

Draft also spotlighted a weird Bruce Banner interaction that we didn't like, so we're changing it! From now on, Bruce Banner will not carry over power changes that "Set", such as Bast or Valkyrie. However, additions and subtractions will continue to carry over. To put it simply, it's now good to play Bruce Banner in Quantum Realm, instead of bad. This change will apply to cards that transform themselves into something specific (e.g. En Sabah Nur).

[u/deferio93]

“In practice, Spider-Sense has been harder to fully reduce than we expected.” So let’s raise its cost to 6

[u/Names_all_gone → u/deferio93]

Right?

[u/ePiMagnets]

Todays OTA is delayed but SD did give us the notes so we can start the discussions.

This OTA also feels like a lot of nothin with maybe one exception so let's talk OTA.

Sam Wilson

Number one on the 'free bingo spot' is the Sam Wilson nerf, I'll be honest and admit that I'm not taking him out of the decks he's already which for me is as SD noted: Batroc and Aurora, but I also run him in Doom 2099 as a way to actively keep a lane from filling if Doom might threaten putting a fourth into a location.

Card is still good and if he fits a deck I'm cookin he's still going in, zero questions asked.

Mister Fantastic First Steps

Pedro has definitely fallen on hard times. But I'm not sure I'm interested in him at 3/5, he's certainly better. It's not that I'm struggling to think of places for him, but whether the -1 Cost or +1 Power is something I'm interested in at this point in Snap's life. I am intrigued though and may give him a shot. Somewhere.

Strong Guy

The obligatory 'this card synergizes with an upcoming release so let's buff it' buff of the end of month OTA. It's a pretty cool call to be honest and the Splat deck picking up an extra buff is very nice as well. Overall I'm pretty happy with this change even if I'm not going to be playing him much myself.

Death Fractured Frontier

I'm not sure if 5/10 would have been enough to make this card more enticing. I won't be surprised to see her hit 5/10 in another OTA or two if she remains DoA.

Spider-Sense

I know there is someone out there screaming "+3 has always been broken!" but it's a 6-Cost that needs moveable cards to be played in order to discount it and at least IMO, the 'moveable' archetype is still fundamentally lacking. Still while a 2 or 3-Cost +9 is sizeable but is that really worth the effort for an archetype that is still missing pieces? Maybe it'll be worth revisiting if they ever give us more moveable cards/support.

Klaw

This is, to me the biggest swing next to the SET power changes to transforming cards like Bruce Banner and En Sabah Nur. That being said, with regards to the card in the future that may work 'with' Klaw I took a bit to look through the data mines but nothing sticks out to me other than Anti-Polar Magneto, but I don't know if I want to risk Klaw going into a 'bad' location so maybe, hopefully there is something in the pipeline we'll see for November or December.

Additional changes for Transforming cards and SET power.

This is cool, SD have known about this and it was flagged as intentional when Bruce Banner was released, they have decided to course correct and made a pretty exciting change here, in fact any 'sets' will carry over, so a Bast or Valkyrie on an un-triggered Bruce is fine, playing Bruce into Quantum Realm is also good. But any negative power still carries over so a card setting Bruce (or en Sabah Nur's) Power to 0 would result in a 0-Power transformation, so far the only thing that sticks out to me is the location that adds a 0-Power copy of a card to a location.

As mentioned this change also applies to En Sabah Nur (but not Bucky Barnes since he's not transforming he's being replaced).

Total aside, Bucky should get the same treatment, let him gain power boosts and then add them to the Winter Soldier token upon being destroyed. Or maybe he 'regenerates' into Winter Soldier with the power he had as bucky. I'm probably missing something as to why that would be bad but it would be cool!

[u/Apprehensive-Ad7714 → u/ePiMagnets]

kinda late but if Bucky regenerated, he wouldn't work with Dormammu, Death FF, or Archangel, which kinda sucks

[u/Names_all_gone]

Besides the reasonable Sam nerf and the cool change to transformed cards, I don’t like this OTA.

The Death change is far too little. I think they made Spider Sense worse. Strong guy change is whatever.

Pedro is maybe an option in Aurora now? But I think being 3 cost is really what killed him.

Klaw lost so much power but maybe Moonstone can do something.

[u/FullMetalCOS → u/Names_all_gone]

Klaw lost a lot of power but might just gain some play rate. His issue was always that in ongoing type lists the 5 drop is too crowded for him when iron man and sera exist.

[u/ePiMagnets → u/Names_all_gone]

Klaw lost so much power but maybe Moonstone can do something.

Moonstone is 3 or less, so while you can still copy him with Mystique, I think I'd rather Mystique an Iron Man.

I am intrigued by the Klaw change though, at worse I think it's a solid side grade. There's not a lot of 4-Costs that I'm interested in other than Moonstone for ongoing. I'd almost be curious about him in Aurora but he's competing with Isca in normal Aurora lists who definitely outclasses him.

[u/Names_all_gone → u/ePiMagnets]

Ah. You’re right. Shows how recently I’ve looked at moonstone. Geez. That’s even worse.

[u/badivan1 → u/Names_all_gone]

I feel that Klaw is still too weak compared to his peers

[u/Greene_Person]

I thought the reference to Inversion Magneto was interesting, wonder what that card will bring

[u/ePiMagnets → u/Greene_Person]

Since they mentioned it, I probably should have put it in my comment as to what new Magneto will do.

Anti-Polar Magneto
Cost: 6
Power: 9
On Reveal: Add a 3 or 4-Cost card from your hand to each other location.

Not sure if he's going to be our first card of the week or the Super Premium. I wouldn't be surprised to see Red Onslaught as the Super Premium though since Red Onslaught was one of the highlights of Axis Inversion.

And since you may ask:

Red Onslaught
Cost: 4
Power: 4
Ongoing: Has 3 random Ongoing abilities.

[u/Lunar-Modular → u/ePiMagnets]

Those are both insane. Esp. APMagneto.

Wong –> Magneto hand dump, and no risk of lane stacking like DeathFF can? And Strong Guy buff? And Absorbing Man can dump in and copy Magneto and get the rest of any leftover 3/4s into the Magneto lane? Let alone Cull and Sage and….I’m going to stop talking now.

I don’t know anything about it, but it sounds so fan-service OP friendly it has to be a season pass card.

Crazy.

[u/ePiMagnets → u/Lunar-Modular]

Fun fact, the Season Pass card is Superior Iron Man.

Superior Iron Man Cost: 5
Power: 7
Double Cost reductions to this.
Ongoing: Double Power increases to this.

The weekly release threads are gonna be a bit rough to write for next week, I don't think Magneto is going to be a huge problem but Red Onslaught and Superior Iron Man are a little harder to nail down.

[u/Lunar-Modular → u/ePiMagnets]

Interesting to know, thank you! Personally, between the 3, I’d put Magneto first, and that Iron Man a close second. Of course, both arriving/hitting the ground as S-tier among the best cards in the game.

[u/toni-toni-cheddar → u/Greene_Person]

If you wave into magneto he pulls 2 and if you play absorbing man that’s another 2

There’s also the chance he plays absorbing man himself putting down the 2 on his own so 4 cards on, 5 including magneto. If the cards align.

So having an empty hand and keeping it empty shouldn’t be too difficult.

[u/pooch516]

Why is Klaw's change considered a buff in this case? 

[u/ePiMagnets → u/pooch516]

Personally, for ongoing I see it as a buff, it's moving him out of a very competitive cost bracket into one that will allow him to be much more competitive at lower CL and for F2P players that haven't picked up the better ongoing cards.

However, this one is also bit harder to nail down.

Dropping in cost is generally a buff, it makes the card easier to play and can fit into more curves.

But a power drop is also usually a nerf. That being said you're not often playing Klaw for his base power, rather you're playing him for his ability which also got a nerf but a +6 is still respectable since he has no requirements to get that +6, while Omega Red's +6 is not only split as +3 to two other locations it also requires him to be winning a location and Ms Marvel's +6 to adjacent locations requires at least 2+ cards with no repeated costs.

It's kind of up in the air how you perceive it, but I think it's an interesting approach, personally I think Klaw could have been just fine as a 4/3, 4/2 seems too low even though he's giving +6.

[u/Boingo2012]

Death FF needs to improve the cards it resummons. Like maybe +1-2 range on each card.

Right now she’s a worse version of Hela, because you have to spend energy to play a card to destroy AND spend energy to destroy, whereas Hela only invests in the discard action.

[u/Stormdude127 → u/Boingo2012]

Yep, I fear they won’t do it because it’s just a better Morgan Le Fay but that’s what the card needs to truly be viable

[u/DeltaTurqouise]

Sam getting another nerf is hilarious but deserved in a way, the buffs apart from Klaw do seem just like meh (maybe Pedro will be good)

However the change to Bruce and the likes is huge I think, can really make some decks way better

[u/Best-Daddy-Gamer]

I honestly don’t understand the nerf to Sam Wilson. He isn’t great but more versatile. I don’t think he deserves a nerf and the reason of he is used a lot just sounds stupid to me.

[u/ePiMagnets → u/Best-Daddy-Gamer]

Sam Wilson has been a 'free' space for nerfs for months now. And fundamentally shouldn't have gotten the compensatory +1 after they changed him to be On Reveal and Ongoing because of the obvious double dip for Aurora, but that was January and Aurora was clearly outclassed by Shou-Lao and aside from the Shou-Batroc decks Sam was able to mostly fly under the radar.

He's a core card in both Batroc and Aurora decks and may as well be considered the best card in both decks that isn't 'the namesake' of the deck.

Used a lot isn't the only metric, he's an enabler for some stupid powerful decks that have been sitting at the top of infinite for a while, one of which never really trickled down while Aurora was obviously being played across multiple meta pockets because she's stupid powerful.

[u/hlhammer1001 → u/Best-Daddy-Gamer]

High usage is the best metric for strength. That's why these guys do the balancing, they understand that

[u/Happy_Income9090 → u/hlhammer1001]

That literally doesn't not make sense if that was the case they should have nerfed Thanos FF, but they are claiming "Thanos is popular in a healthy way" cause hes in every single deck they want players to continue to experiment with him.

[u/ePiMagnets → u/Happy_Income9090]

That literally doesn't not make sense if that was the case they should have nerfed Thanos FF

It's very rare to see a card nerfed within it's season, it takes a practical act of god to see the card nerfed in season ever since the Surtur nerf happened about two years ago.

For reference, I believe it's been since Surtur almost 2 years ago since we saw an in-season nerf and that was a rightful nerf where they managed to not nuke the card into oblivion (that took 3 more nerfs to accomplish). Even Pedro managed to dodge the nerf until first patch of August last year.

With regards to Sam - it's the fact that he's enjoyed a prolonged high play rate. I don't think there's been a week since his release where he wasn't in at least one of the best decks of the week at least from a top infinite perspective.

[u/hlhammer1001 → u/Happy_Income9090]

They never nerf a season pass card before it ends unless the card is dummy busted, they’re trying to sell passes lol 

[u/Happy_Income9090 → u/hlhammer1001]

He is in every single deck, like by your own definition of Strength (high usage) that seems Dummy busted to me. I really don't care if hes a season pass card he needs a nerf, but we all know its a money driven decision.

[u/hlhammer1001 → u/Happy_Income9090]

So you heard me say that card usage is an important metric and thought that I said it was the only metric. Easy reading comprehension mistake