Marvel Snap‘s latest patch adds a new way to play with Conquest mode and a nerf for the powerful, game-altering Galactus. Second Dinner announced the Marvel Snap patch on Tuesday, adding a new game mode, Conquest. Rather than semi-randomly pairing players against other players on the ranked ladder, Conquest challenges Marvel Snap players to rack up consecutive victories. Accomplishing such winning streaks will allow players to rank up through Silver, Gold, and Infinity tiers, earning medals that can be turned in for rewards, including boosters, Avatars, and credits. Claiming enough prizes in the Medal Shop will unlock a bonus reward tying into the season’s theme. This season that’s an exclusive Green Goblin variant.

During the last week of a season, Infinity Conquest becomes available. This even more challenging conquest tier rewards players with an Infinity-Frame version of their Avatar, which is only available by completing Infinity Conquest.

Marvel Snap Conquest and Battle Mode

Unlike ranked Marvel Snap play, Conquest uses a new Battle Mode format. Instead of a best-of-one contest in which players compete for Cubes, Battle Mode pits players in multi-game matches where Cubes are replaced by 10 health each.

Health can be wagered like Cubes, and whoever runs out first loses the match. Decks are locked between games, meaning players will learn more about their opponent’s deck the longer the matchup continues. Battle Mode seems to try to bring the competitive flavor found in many tabletop-CCG’s best-of-three competitive formats to Marvel Snap while still leveraging the digital game’s distinct Cube-ante mechanic.

Marvel Snap Galactus Nerf

The June 13th Marvel Snap patch also changes the game’s Galactus card, which has an effect that changes the game like no other. Previously, playing the card to a location where the controlling player has no other card would trigger its On Reveal ability, destroying both of the other locations in the game completely. Playing Galactus this way turns the game into a single-location showdown, with few counters available to the opposing player.

Second Dinner is changing that calculus slightly by changing the requirements for Galactus’ On reveal to trigger successfully and, perhaps surprisingly for a Nerf, by giving the card a power boost. The controlling player must now be winning the location they play Galactus onto, still with Galactus alone, to destroy the other locations in the game. That’d be tricky with only 2 power, but Galactus now has 7 power instead, making it doable.  However, raising Galactus’ power now also awards the opposing player more of an opportunity to counter the Galactus players’ follow-up play. Since the new requirement mean that the Galactus player will have priority going into the next turn if the On Reveal is triggered, the opposing player will reveal their cards second on the following turn, making it easier for tech cards like Shang-Chi and Enchantress to do their job.

Marvel Snap Maria Hill and Dazzler Changes

Two other cards are also getting adjusted. Maria Hill’s On Reveal effect now allows the card to add both 1 and 2-cost cards to a player’s hand, which Second Dinner says is to make her fit thematically with fellow SHIELD operative Agent Coulson.

Dazzler is getting a complete overhaul, going from a  4/4 to a 3/2 and replacing her previous Ongoing ability with a new one granting the card +2 power for each location full on the controlling player’s side. 

Marvel Snap Patch Notes June 13th in Full:

PATCH HIGHLIGHT

New Game Mode: Conquest

• With this patch, we are excited to release a new game mode: Conquest. Found in the “Game Modes” section of the bottomBar, players can enter Conquests of varying difficulty, earn Medals by playing games, and get exclusive rewards in theShop.
• Conquest is unlocked after completing the Recruit Season Pass.
• Check out the Conquest blog post for more information!

GENERAL UPDATES

New to the Token Shop – Mystery Series 3!

• Open Mystery Series 3 cards for 1,000 Tokens to gain an unowned Series 3 card for your collection

Weekend Missions

– Weekend Missions offer more goals and rewards for players, beyond their current Daily Missions and Weekly Missions. With the initial release of this feature, each weekend will have three Weekend Missions:

• Win Games to Earn Credits
• Win Games with Season Pass Card to Earn Gold
• Win Games with Newly Released Card to Earn Tokens

– Each of these reward amounts will vary depending on the difficulty of the mission. There will be Weekly Missions available for each new card release. Weekly Missions for a Newly Released Card are a great way to earn back Tokens with your new cards – essentially reducing the overall Token cost!

Series Drop Updates: Some cards have dropped to a lower series.

– Cards dropping from Series 5 to Series 4:

• Snowguard
• Stegron

– Cards dropping from Series 4 to Series 3:

• Shanna

 

BALANCE UPDATES

We’ve got one major change this week, and two smaller adjustments we anticipate will make some of our lesser-played cards a lot more fun. We know this patch is coming a couple weeks after High Evolutionary’s release, but bear in mind we implemented these changes well in advance of his release, so we’ll be using OTAs and our next patch to address changes that may be related to that card’s impact on the metagame.

CARD UPDATES

– Galactus:

• [Old] 6/2 – On Reveal: If this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.
• [New] 6/7 – On Reveal: If you’re winning this location and this is your only card here, destroy all other locations.

Galactus is a card we’ve kept a close eye on since release. His ability warps the game, changing the goal for both players from claiming two locations to waging war around cards that “counter” him/his finishers and priority. We don’t mind mixing things up a bit from time to time in that regard, but Galactus’s play rate was moving past the thresholds we set to determine both competitive diversity and also how frequently the game gets reduced to that state. Because Galactus is inherently counterable, we waited to see if the metagame could sort itself out, but it hasn’t. Galactus’s popularity has increased, his winrate has only grown, and many players don’t even enjoy beating him–these are problems worth solving.

The original design for Galactus is difficult to rebalance, because it has essentially one value we can adjust: Power. However, lower Power can mean that Galactus always loses priority, making post-Galactus counters like Shang-Chi or Enchantress difficult to play. Meanwhile, increases may let you beat these cards more naturally, especially Professor X. Either way, it’s still all about the counters. We considered making him the first true 7-Cost card, but that was just less fun and weaker with the same issues. We also considered full redesigns for Galactus but didn’t find anything that cleared our bar, which is very high.

Ultimately, we decided to make Power a functional way for us to tune Galactus, which led us to this additional “winning” restriction. Caring about winning this way lets players contest Galactus within the core fun of SNAP–using Power to challenge for locations. Relying exclusively on counters is frustrating because neither player has much control over their appearance, but every deck should have the ability to muster 7 Power. We expect he’ll be stronger in decks that play him on turn 6 after Hobgoblin or Nimrod, but worse in the stronger, more popular Galactus archetypes. If this change proves too much or too little, it’s also given us the ability to tune him further via OTA and find the healthiest spot.

– Maria Hill:

• [Old] 2/3 – On Reveal: Add a random 1-Cost card to your hand.
• [New] 2/3 – On Reveal: Add a random 1 or 2-Cost card to your hand.

We’re giving Maria Hill the ability to roll a 2-Cost card primarily to make her a better thematic parallel to Agent Coulson. We expect this to be a slight buff as you’ll occasionally get a better card from her, and half the time your Quinjet will provide a discount in those scenarios too. Not a huge mover, but a more enjoyable card.

– Dazzler:

• [Old] 4/4 – Ongoing: If you have 4 cards at each location, +6 Power.
• [New] 3/2 – Ongoing: +2 Power for each location that’s full on your side.

Dazzler’s old ability didn’t give enough of a boost to reflect the level of investment that filling your board demands, and never really found a home competing against many of our strongest 4-Cost cards. We decided to give her more incremental boosts as you fill locations, which also lets her benefit from Space Throne, and shifted her rate to 3-Cost. In addition to changing up the competition, she may have a home alongside Brood with Silver Surfer, in Patriot with Ultron, or other shells.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed an issue that caused the Choose Your Card section to appear to be claimable after it’s already been claimed.
• Fixed an issue with Moon Girl and Miles Morales that caused incorrect costs being displayed.
• Fixed an issue with Jessica Jones’ VFX that caused it to appear in the wrong location.
• Added Snowguard’s artist information to each card version.
• Adjusted how Klyntar’s symbiote handles ongoing cards with modified power to be more intuitive and retain the adjusted values
• Sliding off a purchase button without releasing should now cancel the purchase confirmation
• Iron Lad boosters should no longer be missing their art asset.
• Fixed an issue where Crystal’s ink mod could display incorrectly in some views.
• Fixed an issue that would occasionally softlock players when swapping avatars.
• Fixed an issue where your selected deck would unexpectedly change away from your last selected one.
• Variant rarity labels should now be properly localized.
• Players are no longer prompted to swap in variants if all of their decks with that card already use that variant.
• Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented SFX from playing when claiming a new card.
• Upgrade particles should no longer remain visible when you’ve filtered those cards out of the collection view.
• Fixed issues with some text and assets appearing incorrectly.

KNOWN ISSUES LIST

• The Mystery Series 3 section in the Token Shop can continue to appear purchasable after you’ve become Series 3 complete and will display an error if you try to purchase.
• The Mystery Series 3 option in the Token Shop may not initially be available when upgrading to the newest patch until after the next 8 hour shop refresh.
• The Pinned Card button in the Token Shop has a visual-only bug that persists after you’ve claimed that card but does not function.
• In rare circumstances the Weekly Spotlight card can be purchased more than once.
• The Pinned Card UI can sometimes disappear when scrolling through the Token Shop.
• Intro animations can overlap between Thanos and High Evolutionary.
• Hulks generated by Gamma Lab show VFX for High Evolutionary but do not receive the updated ability.
• VFX associated with High Evolutionary’s evolved cards can occasionally persist after the card or location has been destroyed.
• Evolved Shocker’s VFX initially has incorrect targeting.
• High Evolutionary’s VFX will persist after Attilan activates.
• Friendly battle’s victory/defeat screen is missing it’s banners
• Missions may not visually update properly when on the missions screen as the timer rolls over
• The name of your chosen deck is no longer displaying during the matchmaking screen
• Can navigate between menus when the settings window is open
• Hard restarting your app in the middle of a Fast Upgrade can cause an error to occur after you’ve restarted necessitating another restart to fix it.
• SFX do not play when retreating on Turn 1.
• It can be difficult to interact with the emotes in-match on some devices.
• If you have the Series 3 card focused when the shop rolls, the screen will be blank for a moment.
• Banner VFX displays the wrong turn timer when Kang rewinds time.
• It can be hard to add or delete letters in the deck name on Android.
• Reconnecting text doesn’t show all the time when Reconnecting to a Friendly battle.
• Sandman and Electro may not visually show the power on a location if the location is locked down.
• After the shop rolls over, some assets might be missing (should be resolved after playing a match).
• Spamming the Pin button on items in the Token Shop may cause an Aw Snap error.
• Mission reward icons may be missing.
• Ongoing abilities delay the merge VFX for Klyntar.
• Mysterio’s token doesn’t update appropriately in all views when a using a variant.
• Cards that changed abilities such as Mystique may not show the updated ability text if returned to hand.
• Spectrum’s VFX for indicating which cards will be impacted by her ability aren’t always displaying
• When played on Sinister London, Omega Red’s copy plays its VFX multiple times.
• Cards in the Fast Upgrade section occasionally show the incorrect art.
• Quantum Realm doesn’t reduce the power of cards that have their cost and power swapped.
• Some item names in bundles have too-small fonts or can be cut off in some languages.
• Series 3 Token shop may show duplicate items before it’s rolled through each card..
• New Release cards don’t show your available tokens in the Shop UI.
• Token Shop doesn’t always snap to the currently-focused card.
• Time Stone doesn’t visually grant energy on the orb.
• Can edit a deck’s name from the wrong UI if simultaneously pressing both Set Card Back and Edit Deck Name
• Some elements of the splash screen may be visible across adjacent screens
• The “Next” button in Friendly Battle may be missing its asset on some iOS devices
• The carousel UI may not fully extend vertically to the top of the screen for some devices
• Kang’s Rewind button no longer completely covers the End Turn button visually
• If the Nexus’ power level hits the power cap, upon sharing to other locations with 1 or more power it can overflow and wrap around to a negative value
• If you own all Series 4 and 5 cards as well as all Ultimate variants then the token shop will become inaccessible for Series 3 cards as well
• Notification pips can sometimes be visible beneath the card detail view
• Logging out and attempting to sign in via a different method can result in a hang on the Assembling splash
• When Scarlet Witch or Reality Stone changes a location to Project Pegasus or Tinkerer’s Workshop, this location can trigger two turns.
• The red pip for daily credits isn’t always visible
• Corners of cards can appear cut off when tilted during the card detail view
• Colleen Wing’s VFX play more than once when discarding a card
• A long delay can occur an indestructible card such as colossus is played on Murderworld
• Gold and Season XP assets are missing in the expanded mission details view
• Snowguard’s VFX can persist to the reward collection screen
• Infinity Stone card descriptions overlap the art assets in Korean
• The Spanish language option displays incorrectly in language selection
• Collection Level Trophy Road assets are occasionally slow to load
• The position of the Series Label and Nameplate adjusts slightly when viewing Artist Details
• Player and Opponent text emotes occasionally overlap on some devices
• Upgrade button not greyed out when the player doesn’t have enough credits
• [PC] Navigation buttons may disappear if redirected to the browser via carousel links
• [PC] The Carousel can be hard to scroll.
• [PC] Switching languages after switching between Windowed and Windowed Fullscreen can cause text elements to disappear in the UI.
• [PC] Certain SFX continue to play when the game is no longer in focus.
• [Conquest][PC] The continue/next buttons after conceding are partially obscured
• [Conquest][PC] The matchmaking screen will frequently flicker
• [Conquest] In rare circumstances, the server may not update conquest progress immediately and an error will display which requires a restart to resolve.
• [Conquest] Repeatedly tapping on screen as you exit Conquest may cause the UI to break and require a restart to fix
• [Conquest] If viewing reward items as the conquest timer rolls over the medal conversion screen won’t display
• [Conquest] Occasionally the exclusive card progress bar doesn’t update until you’ve switched screens
• [Conquest] Some oddities can be seen with asset layering
• [Conquest] The infinity tower’s VFX glow can persist to other screens
• [Conquest] The conquest reward assets may not display correctly in all languages
• [Conquest] Scrolling between conquest towers in some languages may cause a hitch to occur
• [Conquest] Sometimes when entering the conquest menu the UI isn’t centered
• [Conquest] “NEW” isn’t properly localized for non-English
• [Conquest] In some languages the titles of items in the Medal Shop can overlap their assets