Exploring Bastion, New Human Torch, and Imbalance OTA | New OTA Decks | The Snap Chat Ep. 149

What are the impacts of the latest imbalance patch? Which decks are thriving post-OTA? How does the community feel about ranking up and the collection track? Join Alexander Coccia and special guest Ryan Hartman as they chat about this and more on this episode of The Snap Chat and catch Cozy and Alex every week as they discuss all things Marvel Snap.

Have a question or comment for Cozy and Alex? Send them a Text Message.

You’ve been listening to The Snap Chat. Keep the conversation going on x.com/ACozyGamer and x.com/AlexanderCoccia. Until next time, happy snapping!

Episode Transcript

Alex (00:00):
Hey everyone, and welcome to the next edition of the
Snapchat.
I'm joined today by a veryspecial guest, someone that I
respect greatly in the gamingindustry, someone who has done a
tremendous amount for MarvelSnap behind the scenes, and I'm
excited to get into all of itthis week as well as all the
topics we're discussing today.
We are joined by Ryan Hartman,the Vice President of Penny

(00:20):
Arcade, and the head of pax, theConventions Heard Around the
World.
Ryan, how are you today?
Great, man.
Thanks for, uh, thanks forasking me to do this.
This'll be fun.
Yeah, I'm actually super excitedbecause there's a couple things.
First of all, we got some goodtopics to talk about and, uh, a
lot of people might not realizethis, but despite the fact that
you're one of the busiest guysthat I know on the planet who is
literally traveling to Australianext week and then, uh, back

(00:43):
home in a Philly like a monthafter or whatever, right.
You have so many massiveconventions out and it was just
Pax PAX Prime was just the otherweek.
It feels like you've made time.
Yeah.
PAX West, my apologies.
These PAX West.
Yeah.
Actually, what, why did wechange the name from Pax Prime
to Pax?
Was.

Ryan (00:58):
Well, once we started doing more than one show, this
was like right when I got hired,I got hired right when like East
started.
I wasn't always in charge ofeverything.
And the decision was madebecause Prime sounded like it
was better than everything else.
And once we started doingregional shows, so it was like
east and it was south, we werelike, we have to make it west.
So they're one doesn't feel likeit's branded better than the

(01:20):
others.

Alex (01:21):
Yeah,

Ryan (01:22):
fair enough.
And perfect sense.
Just because it's like its ownlittle like spinoff kind of
thing.
Like it's, it's a pacs but it'sgot like a special focus, you
know?
Yeah.
That was the, that was thedecision of behind anemic
convention.

Alex (01:34):
And despite all of this, you are actually a avid Marvel
Snap player.
Uh, you play a ton of Snap.
Yeah.
You love car games as a whole,and I mean, people probably
know, listen what

Ryan (01:42):
Dexter says.
I get infinite every season.
He clowns me and says, I don't,I do most once or twice.
I miss if like, PAX is way toobusy and I don't have enough.
But I think I've only missed,and, and I was in the beta, I've
played every season and I'veprobably not hit infinite, maybe
like three or four times in theentire run of the whole game.

Alex (02:03):
Yeah.
And I mean, uh, as someone whoobviously has the schedule you
have and keeping up with thegame is, is pretty cool.
But also people might notrealize this.
You are actually kind of the,the mind behind the community
meetup that we did in Seattlewhere we had the, uh, developers
from second dinner come by, abunch of community members.
You know, you organized all the,the gifts and giveaways and
stuff like that.

(02:23):
You're the guy responsible forthe PACS card backs that go into
the game.
The, the bundles, the variance,all those giveaways that have
become synonymous with PACS andMarvel Snap.
One of the most popular not onlyTwitch giveaways, but we
actually had Twitch drops thatwere those PACS as well.
And you're one of the peoplebehind that.
Do you want to kind of, uh, talkabout like why you wanted to
kind of get involved with Snapand, uh, kind of your

(02:45):
inspiration for getting a cardback in the game?

Ryan (02:48):
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've played.
Lots of card games.
I love Tcgs, lcg and all sortsof card games.
I'm, I'm super obsessed withcard games.
I played magic like everyoneelse did back.
I played magic in like middleschool when it was like first
coming out, like not to agemyself.
I never was good enough becauseI was so young.

(03:10):
I wasn't like they tour level,but I like went to a bunch of
tournaments.
But I got really into Versasystem in high school and
college, which was like upperdecks, marble game.
I played that at pro level.
All my friends, like my socialcircle of friends that were all
gamers, like they were pros at,uh, decipher Star Wars.

(03:30):
There was a couple magic prosthat were in our circle.
Um, they were playingcompetitive.
What else were we playing?
Competitive late.
I tried to get them in Pokemonright when it first dropped, and
I couldn't get anyone interestedin Pokemon when I first came in.
We weren't really into U gao.
Uh, but like still, I stuck withevery game.
I, I love playing card games.
And this one really hooked mewhen it first came out.
Also, I played a ton ofHearthstone.

(03:51):
I was super deep in a heartstone, and I had known Ben from
he had come and spoken at Paxbefore.
So when he left and then jumpedover here and put out a new game
just on like his name alone, Iwas like, oh, I gotta check this
out, and I love it.
And I, and I, it speaks to howwell it's designed that, uh,
someone as busy as I am, Ken,still play and keep up at a

(04:12):
competitive level.
'cause the games are so fast.
I also just love that like fiveminute games, you know, five
minute, 10 minute, I guess ifthey go super long and then
you're done and you're on, like,you play another one and you
don't get, I don't get as tiltedin this game.
I'm not playing a game for like45 minutes.
And then you lose and you'relike, I just wasted almost an
hour and I lost.
Like, here.
It's like you win, you lose.

(04:32):
The time it takes you to go tothe bathroom.
So you're just able to just jumpback on.
It doesn't hurt as much.
And it's just a really welldesigned, quick fun game.
Like, I really, really enjoy howit's done.
And then when it first came out,we were all super into it and
then they asked, actually seconddinner reached out.
First they asked Mike to, orthey asked Penny Arcade if Mike

(04:52):
wanted to do some card art.
And we were like, absolutely.
And Mike jumped on itimmediately because he got to
play with like the Marvel ip,which is, so cool.
So he gets to draw like more andSpider-Man and all these things
as an artist who wouldn't like,love that opportunity.
And then in talking with him, Iwas like, Hey, would you be
intro, can we do a bundle?
We do some sort of giveaway atpacks.
You know, I proposed a bunch ofdifferent stuff to them and they

(05:14):
were, they were super down andcredit to, uh, our designer on
our team, Dave, he's the one whohas done all the card backs.
He and I sit down and like wework through them, but he's the
one who makes small happen.
He did the Captain America oneand he did the most recent one
that kind of.
Is that, uh, Metro Pass thatgoes with our, uh, PAX theme.
But he did an amazing job andlike, sounds like we'll probably

(05:35):
do another one next year too,need to actually talk to them
after this call.

Alex (05:40):
Yeah.
That's amazing.
And yeah, like breaking news,we'll probably have another

Ryan (05:42):
one next year.

Alex (05:43):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
And uh, yeah, I mean, like thosecar backs are phenomenal.
Obviously the graffiti one wassuper popular as well, and I
like the, it actually comes withthis year's came with a border
and it came with the, uh, withthe, um, the actual variant as
well of Miles Morales, whichMike had done, which is
remarkably incredible.
Um, yeah.
And actually I have all thePanera key variants and uh, one

(06:04):
of my absolute favorite ones isthe key Bishop.
I'll show it later, the KeyBishop one.
'cause it just, she stands out.
Like it's just beautiful.
He has such a talent for thatkind of stuff.
Yeah, and I have to say, youprobably have seen Ryan if
you're on Twitch, because RyanHartman is great, we'll pop into
streams all the time and justdrop codes, just drop giveaway
codes for the card backs andstuff like that.
Whether you're in mine or, ordecks or huskies or kms or

(06:27):
anything like that.
I always see you just, justdropping codes, which we all
certainly appreciate.

Ryan (06:33):
No, I mean, the community around this game is awesome and
I definitely want to, you know,try to, give back as much as I
can.
I really enjoy like the groupthat's formed around this game.
And then, yeah, so when we putthis to bundle together, it was,
it was like, Hey, can just giveit away for free at packs.
It's just a fun promotional.
But like I recognize we do foura year, but if you're not in the

(06:53):
US or Australia, they're kind ofhard to get to.
You know, if you're not on likeone of the coasts or something,
it might be hard to get to ifyou're in another country, it
might be hard to get to.
So I was trying to just seed itout there as much as possible
with that, you know, while stillmaking it a cool thing and
reward a Pax attendee, but alsojust like try to get it out as
much as we can as well.
And then they do, they did acool thing last year where they

(07:14):
were like, well, it was almostlike a year long exclusive.
At the end of the year, theywere like, Hey, can we just use
the Pax card back that you guysmade as giveaways and then just
use it as a drop?
And I was like, absolutely.
Yeah that's totally fine withme.
It's your game.
You guys go nuts with it.
So we'll probably do that again.
Uh, we haven't talked about theplans for this second bundle,
but I'm, like I said, I'll chatwith them.

(07:35):
But I think we'll definitely beable to do a third one and then,
and then anything else we cando, I will say like, they're
pretty cool to work with.
They're pretty easy.
I like everyone that I've, I'vemet and I've spoken with at
second dinner, they're pretty.
They're pretty receptive to, uh,to doing like cool promotional
stuff like this anytime I'veproposed it.
So,

Alex (07:51):
yeah.
That's awesome.
One thing I wanna go back toquick.
You mentioned 10 minute games.
Are you like roping youropponents nonstop to get to 10
minutes?
I mean, like what are the kindof jacks you're playing where
the games take 10 minutes?

Ryan (08:03):
I don't know.
I'm thinking about like reallylong games, I

Alex (08:05):
guess.
Yeah.
All right.
Like five minute games.
Yeah.
Five minutes probably.
Even if you're playing magic,it's hard to get to five minutes
sometimes.

Ryan (08:12):
Yeah.

Alex (08:13):
Well, seven turns, I don't

Ryan (08:15):
know if seven turns and they rope every turn, I don't
know, feel like I'm gonna haveto time it.
I'm gonna like play a scumbaggame after this and rope every
turn and see and like.

Alex (08:26):
And what's funny about what you had said prior to, I
wanna go back to, is you talkedabout how like, obviously you
were interested'cause like youwere familiar with Ben's Worth
and Hearthstone.
And it's, it's crazy'cause I wasintroduced to Hearthstone at PAX
East.
I remember going down theescalator going into the big,
what it feels like an airplanehanger filled with games and
stuff.
And on the right side it was theHearthstone booth.
No one had ever seen it before.
And it, like, it was the rage ofthe show.

(08:47):
It felt like that was like oneof the things it was, no one
knew it was there.
Like I didn't even know it hadbeen announced.
Like it, it was just, it justwas there.
Yeah.
I was like, what is that?
Is that blizzard?
And then I loved her stone aswell and um.
That's how I got started withSnap when I saw the
announcement.
Oh, this is Ben Bro's.
New game.
I applied to the beta just likeany other human being would.

(09:08):
And um, I was creating Dotacontent at the time and I didn't
even get in on the first wave ofthe beta.
I got in on the second wave anduh, I just fell in love with the
game and I told my wife, I'mlike, you know what?
I don't wanna do Dota stuffanymore.
I just wanna play this newMarvel Snap game.
I actually am having fun playingit.
Can you believe that?
And I remember the day beforethe Snap released my stream

(09:29):
count, my average viewership waslike three viewers.
And then the rest is history.
Right?
And it's like, it's crazybecause I had so much faith in
the game.
Like I, I, I really did love itand I still love it.

Ryan (09:39):
It's funny you mentioned that, uh, art still launched.
That was like one of the first,what was that?
That had to have been like 2013, 20 14, because that was
pretty early in the, my, uh,working with Pax.
And at the time I was like incharge of all our theater
content.
So everything that was happeningon a stage, like I was
coordinating and Blizzardreached out for that like.
I wanna say like a month beforethe show, maybe not even, maybe

(10:00):
like three weeks before theshow, which is usually way too
late to get something togetherfor a pacs not to get inside
baseball and like how we run aconvention, but like, but it's
Blizzard.
So I'm like, all right, wellI'll find something.
We will make it work.
Obviously the main theater was,was that was main theater
worthy, but we didn't have spacefor it.
But uh, we were able to put itin like one of our big satellite

(10:20):
theaters.
And also at the time, likeBlizzard didn't have a bunch of
other games, like people wereguessing the world of Warcraft
owned the universe, right?
So everyone was speculating onlike a new, like, a new, uh, uh,
a new like massive multiplayeror something.
And then and then there werelike a card game.
And I remember everyone waslike, what a card game.
And then, but yeah, but then itblew up.
It became like this, I think ifit was an unexpected hit within

(10:43):
Blizzard itself, like it wassuch a good game.
It was so much fun.
And, uh, but I remember havinglike scrambled to get them in
and then get all the press.
I helped them coordinate and getlike all the press in the room
and stuff for this bigannouncement.
But I remember having to do thatliterally like days before the
show.
There was still things changingand it was still like, oh, we're
gonna do this now, we're gonnachange that.
I'm like, whatever, we'll makeit work.

(11:04):
It was, it was one of the firstpanels at that show.
It was like the doors opened andthen that was like, I had to
squeeze it in like super earlyon the schedule.
So it was like doors to the showopened and Liz got a panel in,
in a side room.
It was crazy, but

Alex (11:17):
yeah.
That's awesome.
But it's just funny how thegrassroots yeah, it's the
grassroots of how we all got towhere we are today.
And, uh, talking aboutgrassroots, we should actually
talk about some Marvel Snapcards.
And I think we should getstarted with a review of
Bastion.
Bastion came out this week and,uh, there was some concern about
Bastion, right?
Like there was like some wholeHummer around four three,

(11:38):
obviously a pretty weak statline.
Borderline a terrible stat lineto be honest with you, but.
On reveal, add copies of theother cards here to your hand
and setting their cards.
Their cost to two and theirpower to three could be
potentially very impactful,especially since you are seeing
a massive resurgence insomething like Cerebral.
Cerebral seeing a massive amountof play right now.
Victoria Hand is becoming a verypopular archetype in and of

(12:01):
itself.
Now we did warn I was a littlehesitant, like, okay, listen,
Cozy came in at four Stars.
I came in at Three Red's lastweek was all over.
He was at five.
He was like singing bastion'spraises, and we have not really
seen Bastion over perform.
Right now.
Currently he's running aapproximately a 49% win rate
according to untapped basestatistics.

(12:22):
Slightly positive on the, uh,the cube rate side, but almost
9% popularity, which means he'sgetting some testing in the
meta.
Ryan, I, I pitch it to you.
How has your experience beenplaying Bastion this past week
and, uh, what is your kind oflike in review star rating from
one to five if you had to pin astar rating on him?

Ryan (12:40):
Yeah

Alex (12:40):
I was coming in, I

Ryan (12:42):
didn't, I didn't see it.
Like I didn't, there wassomething interesting here, but
I was like, yeah, my headimmediately went to, all right,
like cerebro you know, C3.
Yeah.
And the thing that I was down onwas the forecast.
'cause I was like I, I also wentto like a, a sort of like copy
slash pseudo bounce sort ofthing where, where my head was

(13:05):
going.
And I was like, you're, you'reactivating all this at four.
So like, you pop off on fivesix.
Like, I was in the three range.
I think there was somethingthere and I was like, people
smarter than me can crack thiscode.
But I'm still feeling like it'saround a three four.
It's not a bad card by anystretch, but like, it's not meta
defining, it's not like somesort of archetype defining card.

(13:28):
It seems interesting.
I think there's still room toexplore.
Yeah, the Victoria Hand stuffseems to be the most obvious to
me.
That's where she's reallystrong.
You get her and you do some sortof fri of build, you know, and
then pop him in there, and thenturning cards with low power or
like really good activations athigher levels.

(13:50):
So like, oh, if you can get aIron Man, two, three Iron Man's
insane, or you get some reallyhigh, five cost card.
But then it's like you, you'reholding in your hand, you're
bouncing this on uh, or yougotta play it on five.
So it's like, eh, you gotta,you, you gotta cheat him out
early in order to bounce the,and it's like, eh, that was what
always got me was the four onBastion.

(14:11):
And I still think that's kind ofthe problem with him, but maybe
it's not a problem.
'cause if he's like a three or atwo, then he's incredibly
busted.
So it's like he's probably wherehe should be.

Alex (14:20):
Yeah, in terms of dials, like this card doesn't have that
many dials.
It almost looks like it does,but realistically, I think that
for the most part, and I don'tknow this for sure, but I wonder
if the design team's like, okay,we want to infuse some power
into some different types ofarchetypes.
I think that's been one of theirgoals we've been seeing over the
last little while.
They want a wider variety ofdecks and I don't care what
anyone says.
I feel like they have actuallymade a conscious effort to give

(14:44):
cerebral some love.
And cerebral actually did seesome changes, right?
He was a two cost at one point.
Now he's a three.
Cost plus three, which is a lotin terms of pure stats.
Cerebral might still be one ofthe higher stat based decks in
Marvel Snap right now.
And I think bashing goesperfectly in there.
And we saw Cerebro twospecifically really take off,

(15:04):
and now I think we're seeingCerebro three start to
outperform Cerebro two.
But it's gonna take a little bitof time.
Now obviously we're in thisweird OTA era.
We'll talk about thatafterwards.
Uh, but it's.
But Bastion does represent avery interesting card for those
particular decks.
Now, that's not where it endsthough, because you do have
Bastion being very good inVictoria hand, Victoria hand's

(15:25):
becoming incredibly popular andwith Bastion you're able to
replicate the borderline oncurve your Quinjet and your
Victoria hands themselves.
I was trying to play this veryinteresting deck where I had
Victoria hand.
I actually was running a, um,moonstone as well, which super
greedy and it is not in most ofthose decks.
I had like Moonstone Fri and allthese ways to copy cards and

(15:46):
then really amp up the effect ofthe Victoria hand.
And when you play cards likeMisery and Hood, you're able to
generate so much value withthose hoods, uh, those, those,
uh, demons I should say.
And ultimately I feel likebastion.
Has this, and you brought it upbefore this balance style play
where like you're pulling thingsback from the, the field of play

(16:06):
into your hand and yet theystill kind of remain.
And in C3 what's interesting isyou can place cerebral on curve
on turn three, basing it oncurve on turn four, and still
have a two costed cerebral andyour three costed mystique.
So you can still get thecerebral mystique combination
because you can kind of breakthe chain with mystique in some
degree and still have that newlycopied cerebral to play, which I

(16:30):
think creates a very flexibleand verse style way to approach
it.
So, overall, I've actually beenimpressed with Bastion, and
you're right, actually, you saidsomething very important that
it's probably gonna age well andsomeone's gonna crack the code
because one thing about MarvelSnap is, especially in these
first couple weeks, you have anonslaught of cards, an absolute
onslaught of cards, and theydon't get a chance to breathe

(16:51):
all the time.
As we get into the middle of theseason, the release schedule
slows a bit.
And things breathe more.
So hopefully we see some cookswith bastion.

Ryan (17:01):
Well, yeah.
And also like, everyone's goingto be, everyone tests the newest
card, right?
And then in two weeks, like thetest is like two weeks later.
Like if people are still playingit or if they're still trying to
mess with it.
It's like when Frankie Wrightcame out, uh, Frankie Rose
everywhere for a week or two.
I don't see the other oneplaying Frankie anymore.
See some Frankie Ray builds, butit's like, not really.
Right?
It's like, so it's like that'sthe test.

(17:22):
If this, like, if he makes, hesee does seem to slot best in
like a Victoria hand, just cargeneration build.
But it is like this pseudobounce sort of thing.
I, I, um, yeah I like him.
I just don't know.
Uh, he also goes into like decksthat I don't usually gravitate
towards too, which is why I amalso kind of like mid on him.

(17:42):
No, I, I, I think there issomething there, but it is like,
it does feel like a lot of work.
And it's like, and it's like yousaid, like you need the, you
really need the misery, right?
Because you play this with likereally powerful one drops in a
lane and then, but then you gota clogged up lane.
'cause what are you gonna putdrop 3, 3, 1 drops and then him
to get three good, like 3, 2, 3versions of the back.
But then the lane's full.

(18:03):
So what you do two and then amisery to pop it, but then it
pops him two.
So it's like, all right, myentire lane's dead.
So it's like, there's a lot oflike weird decisions you have to
make, like, with those sorts ofthings.
But actually that is a hallmarkof a well designed card, right?
I like when it's like, it'scomes down to a bunch of
decisions.
When the card plays itself.
That's boring to me.

(18:23):
This is like, this is a cardthat requires like some lateral
thinking, some smart piloting,some real intricate decisions in
the, uh, deck construction,which is probably why I don't
play it because I'm dumb and Iwanna move fast, then fall onto
destruction.
I drop a card and I kill it.
They're on the next thing.

(18:44):
That's all I gotta do.

Alex (18:45):
Three minute games talking about five minute games.
I could be done, I could be donein two minutes.
We started at 10 minutes.
Now we're down to two minutes.
Now we're down to two.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Now we're down to two.
And you know what, I know thatBastion may age well, but
there's been a lot of debateabout the new card this week.
Jim Hammond, the Human Torch.

(19:05):
We needed another human torch inthe game.
I don't know if you thought thatway, Ryan, but I was like, you
know what we need, we needanother human torch because we
don't have enough of them.
We haven't released a humantorch in three weeks.
So let's get another one outthere and see what we can do.
Now, here's the funny thing.
So Cozy and I, when we previewedJim Hammond, the Human Torch
also every time I see JimHammond I think, is it Richard
Hammond, the guy from Top Gear?

(19:27):
I, well, I, I keep thinkingabout the, there's a guy who
races cars.
I'm pretty sure it's RichardHammond.
Anyways, um, when I saw thename, I was like, I right here.
No, it's okay.
Someone in the comments will belike, Alex, yes, it's Richard
Hammond.
Or some, maybe I'm mixing uptheir names.
I used to love Top Gear.
But anyways, so Jim Hammond,human Torch, Cozy and I both
came in really low, but we'vereceived some clarification

(19:48):
about the effect, and I'll speakon that.
So I came in at like one or twostars and Cozy at two.
However, we were under theimpression that the fallen one
was not going to synergize withJim Hammond.
We were under the impressionthat the fallen one was not
gonna count, and I'm gonna putit up on the screen here.
But Glenn has verified, and I'llread exactly what the question

(20:13):
was.
Does fall in one's max energyramp create bonus energy that
Jim Hamid converts intorepeatable start of turn power.
That was the question from thecommunity.
Glenn responded.
Jim Hamid checks for positivechanges in the energy you're
supposed to have from normalgame progress.
So anything that changes thatfall in one Wicken s lock will

(20:36):
count.
Similarly, havoc will eat bonusenergy but never cause a power
reduction because Jim doesn'tcheck for negative gains.
So the fallen one will work withJim Hammond, and because of
that, this is a totallydifferent card, completely
different card, and the upsideis significant.
Now I do think it's going to bevery much tied to the fall in

(20:58):
one and it's gonna live or diebased on whether or not we're
able to cook a fall in one deckthat can take advantage of this.
But that clarification changedeverything.
And uh, I'm gonna give you thefloor, Ryan, but I'm gonna
reconsider my star rating.

Ryan (21:11):
Yeah, I, in, in thinking about this card, like I was just
trying to go through like, whatare the optimal use cases,
right?
And it's like, really all Icould see is the fallen one.
But again, I was so down on thiscard that it makes me think it
might be good because anytimeI'm like super up on a card, I
know that's dangerous.
I'm like, this card is obviouslyamazing and that's always wrong.

(21:34):
And if I'm like, this card isobviously garbage, that's
usually wrong.
Then I'm like, okay, like myinstinct is like, this is a bad
card, which tells me like, it'sprobably not as bad as it seems.
Um, the only one I was everlike, this is sucks and it
actually sucks, was like MattThinker.
But because I'm like, whoa,whoa, yeah, what are you gonna
use this with, right?
Like, what, what is your optimalplay line with this card?
Because it, it's like, oh, maybeWcan or maybe Aish aum crapshoot

(21:58):
if you get this or not.
Right?
Or maybe you're certainly, it'sa crapshoot if you get'em on a
curve.
You know, so it's like, are yougonna optimize'em there?
Wcan maybe.
But then it's like, what do youwanna run in a r wcan?
You wanna run quicksilver andyou wanna run a domino, right?
So it's like, are you gonna riskyour one two curve?
Like I run one, one and one two,and then I run threes and higher

(22:18):
in a, in a wcan deck.
So I wanna introduce a bunch ofones and roll the dice there.
And I, I don't have the stats infront of me there.
There's like a, a math curve onlike exactly how many ones you
need to have in your deck inorder to guarantee you draw one
within 12 cards right whenyou're like first turn.
So it's like, I don't wanna playall that and I don't wanna clunk
up my deck with one drops whenI'm playing a deck that's

(22:38):
supposed to be cheating nowenergy, right?
Like a Wiccan deck.
You wanna play 1, 1 1 2 threesand mostly you want beef, you
want big beefy boys that youdrop the six drops and higher
five and six drops.
So it's like, ah, is that gonnawork in a wicked deck?
Really?
So then it really is just thefallen one.
So this is just a utility cardthat slots.

(22:59):
Inside a fall in one combo deck.
And then what are you doing in afall in one combo deck, right?
You're dropping sym Spider-Manor, um, uh, uh, Shuri, right?
And it's like May or maybe bothin conjunction or something.
If you can, if you can figurethat out.
And then I don't even know whatyou would get off that.
So a fall one into Asur wouldget you 10 on going into, uh,

(23:23):
six, right?
So what's that?
So fall one on five, double 10,you're getting 10 energy into a
11 going into turn six.
It would then do the check rightat the start of turn it would
check and it's like, you shouldhave six energy.
You have 10, so you're gettingfour.
So this makes him a one six.
It's like, okay, wait A one six.
It's like, it was a lot of workjust to get a one six when I

(23:44):
could have just played black catat some point, you know, for a
one five or, or something likethat.
He'll have synergy in thosescenarios, but it's like, unless
there's some other crazy combohere.
I'm not seeing other than likeyou buff the hell out of a
fallen one just to get one morelike juiced up card.
It feels like it would, thestars would have to really align
for him to really pop off withfallen one.

(24:07):
It feels like it might be a goodlittle, a one, a good little one
six utility that you hitsometimes in a fallen one deck,
which is fun.
It has its place, but it's notgonna set the world on fire in
my opinion.

Alex (24:19):
And I mean you touched on a couple really important
things.
The first is that obviouslywe're fixating on the fallen one
now that we understand that thatsynergy is gonna be there.
But the fallen one released andhonestly was not great.
It didn't really light the meton fire at all.
It didn't generate muchexcitement and I would suspect
that not a lot of people havethe fallen one.
And as a result you are.

(24:39):
Now, if let's say the fallen onedeck takes off with Jim Hammond,
players now have to invest intwo cards, right?
To get to the fallen one.
Yeah.
And the fallen one's primarydecks that we're seeing play
were kid Omega nimrod decks.
So now you're like, kid Omegain, you're so like, I wonder
about how deep the averageplayer would have to.

(25:01):
Dive into their pocket toactually make Jim Hammond and
playing Jim Hammond reasonable.
That's another concern I have.
And because like, you'reprobably out the fall in one,
Jim Hammond's gonna cost you,uh, your tokens as well.
And it's a lot to invest in.
What, honestly is a questionmark of a card in terms of its
actual viability.
'cause even in the circumstanceyou suggest where, you know,
you're estimating about, sixPower from Jim Hammond.

(25:23):
The problem with that is thatlike, well, martyr's still a one
five.
Now obviously Martyr is activelytrying to lose you the game, but
you can just play martyr.
You can just slap her down onwhatever turn you want.
You don't have to go through allthese extra shenanigans.
Right?
And you touch on Aisha.
You're right, it's a totalcrapshoot as to whether or not
you're gonna draw ra.
You're diluting your deck by asignificant amount, and I don't
think you're ever in a situationwhere, especially considering

(25:44):
the buff to Domino, yourearrange a wcan base shell to
include a whole bunch of onedrops and you cut Quicksilver.
I don't think you ever do that.
'cause exactly as you said, youneed the chunky boys.
They're all like, you have theextra two energy and you're top
decking one drops.
You're like, shit like, whoa,like supposed to do with this.
Right?
So you're right.
I think that it's gonna bedefinitely alongside fallen one

(26:04):
in a synergy.
I actually think is going tosurpass Sheri specifically is
Symbio Spider-Man, becauseyou're doubling the power
Symbio.
Spider-Man has a higher basepower level than Sheri.
You're gonna run both in thesame deck.
Usually, like if it's a Nimrodbased shell, then you're gonna
run both in the same deck.

Ryan (26:19):
Yeah.

Alex (26:19):
But because of the higher base power of Syme Spider-Man,
that will give you someadditional reach.
Right.
And usually you can also useSymbio Spider-Man in some other
unique ways.
It's actually kind of an unsunghero of those Nimrod decks, to
be honest with you.
I really like the card andactually Sym Spider-Man's
fantastic in Frankie RayNovadeck that you suggested,
which are actually making a bitof a comeback because of the

(26:40):
changes to Sean Chi with thisweird OTA.
But I do think that specificallyJim Hammond could get to some
insane power, rough math.
I can see him easily getting tolike, so if you'd play the Sym
Spider-Man and then you play thefall in one and you symbi old
Spider-Man that like, he'seasily over like 10 power.
Right.
I'm not doing the math in myhead right now.
I'm kind of just shooting.
Yeah.
So

Ryan (27:00):
in that scenario, what happens?
So you play the fall in one andthen on five because you're
playing Curve, right?
So Spider-Man on four.
Yep.
Yeah.
Fall in one on five.
Fallen one on five gives youfive energy, but it's five turns
so it does nothing but thenemerges and triggers again.
And that's for what?
12.

(27:20):
So then you've got 13 going intosix.
So then you're getting sevenextra power over the turn,
right?
Am I also misinterpreting howthis works?
It reads bull is power beyondwhat you should.
Yes.
So he does a check at thebeginning of every turn and says
like, oh, it's turn two andyou're starting with three
energy.
He therefore gets plus onebecause you got one.

(27:41):
Right.
So in that scenario you'regetting what?
Seven.
So he's a nine.
Right.
Forget what number I was at.
But anyway, so I mean A onenine, Hey, that's not that his
sneeze at, right?
Like yeah.
So he fits it over, but it'slike, so you gotta get him on
one and then play him in thatinstance.
And it's like, that's not a badcombo, but it's really wor, he
basically only works as far as Icould see with that.

(28:03):
So I was trying to think throughother stuff.
I'm like, well, can you likejust low key, get some value out
of him with playing a s lock andstuff and do some sort of thing
with sunspot and like, uh, sheHulk maybe there's some sort of
like package there, but I'mlike, I don't know as I like
think through it, JenniferTaylor and stuff where you do
little bits of cheatingthroughout the game and maybe

(28:23):
that gets you something.
But even then it's like you get'em what to like 1, 5, 1 6, 1.
I mean that that's not that asneeze at, if they dropped the
one six tomorrow we'd all belike, this is an amazing card.
But I don't know,

Alex (28:33):
it just feels like there's a lot of steps involved.
You brought up a good point.
You did bring up sunspot and Iactually do think the Sunspot
and Jim Hammond could probablyplay together relatively nicely.
If anything, I think that we'relikely to see some sort of
hybrid.
Nimrod, deck with Jim Hammondand Sunspot being included.

(28:53):
That'll probably make sensealongside the fallen one.
And that's probably where gonna,you're gonna see the, the
highest percentage of like winrate and cube rate and stuff
like that.
Now again, someone might cooksomething completely different
with Jim Hammond, but sometimesthe most obvious thing is the
obvious answer.
And sunspot is gonna be verysynergistic with the likes of
Jim Hammond.
And not just that, but in theevent that you don't draw Jim

(29:14):
Hammond sunspot is also in aposition where it could utilize
that extra energy beinggenerated in the event that you
don't have optimum plays.
Right.
So I do like the color forsunspot.
I do think it makes a lot ofsense.

Ryan (29:26):
Yeah.
I mean, as a, as we're talkingthrough it, just like theory
crafting here.
There might be something I, Ithink he's a solid too.
Is he like a must purchase card?
No.
Is he gonna change the meta?
No, he's just a thing that willsupplement an existing deck.
For now.
You know, and maybe as morecards come out, maybe he's
better.

(29:46):
I don't know.
Does he work with, uh, is thereany sort of scenario he works
well with the bastion?
No, not that

Alex (29:52):
I could see.
No.
He seems very narrow in hisfocus and that's okay.
Right.
Yeah.
As Marvel Snap, I think we'realmost at like 400 cards or
something like that.
As Marvel Snap introduces moreand more cards.
There's only so many two threesthat do plus ones that you can
release.
Like eventually you have toniche down.
And I think that's what we'reseeing with a lot of these
cards.
And actually over the lastcouple months, I think the
designs have been cool.
Like, look at what we got inMoira.

(30:13):
I think Moira is a really coolcard.
Sometimes they're gonna land,sometimes they're not.
And sometimes they age well.
Like we're talking about thefallen one here, this is a card
that no one really cared about.
And then suddenly you releasesomething like Jim Hammond and
the conversation changes.
The conversation changes oflike, oh wait, wait, maybe we're
adding something that makes thefallen one like viable.
Right?

(30:33):
It didn't feel viable on thelaunch window, but now it is.
Right.
And so, um, that is somethingworth considering for sure.
And Ryan, we got so much to talkabout today.
So much to talk,'cause we needto talk about this absolutely
insane imbalance patch.
I'm calling it an imbalancepatch.
The robot imbalance patch,because it might not have been
inherently obvious, but they dointend on reverting many of

(30:55):
these changes.
I did say it in kind of like my,my review video.
They're kind of swinging in avery interesting way to see kind
of like what sticks, whatdoesn't.
I guess they're kind of takingsome information and some data,
but they're also just trying tosee like, okay, you guys want a
shachi nerve.
Chachi's nerve, right?
So we're gonna go through all ofthem quickly here, and I love
some of your hot takes.
So right off the bat here,Shachi goes from a four three

(31:16):
that destroys everything in agiven location.
Over 10 power two, A four, twothat only destroys a single card
with 10 or more power.
This is a very significant NerfRyan.
First of all, do you think thisNerf sticks?
That's how we'll do it.
Ryan, do you think the Nerf isgonna stick?
And what are your generalthoughts?
So

Ryan (31:34):
with the new, with the new Let's Patch as it were.
I don't, I like it.
It's making things weird.
It's making things interesting.
It's not what we had, but like,I didn't like tech slop before.
That was like the prominent deckbecause it could handle
everything.
You know what, that was one ofthe quotes, like when they first
designed the game, right?

(31:55):
Wasn't it?
Like, it's supposed to be likewe're building sandcastles and
who can make the biggersandcastle, but you need tech
cards to stop what I'm startingto run into, which is just
weirdo combo crap becauseeveryone's gonna zone in, oh,
what is the most powerful combo?
And if there's nothing to stopcombos, everyone's just gonna do
the same two or three combos,which I'm seeing a million human

(32:15):
torch and then living tribunalthings at the moment.
I keep running into that.
Like I was running into that allmorning which is ironically now
that tech cards are dead, I'mrunning more tech cards than I
ever did.
'cause no one's expecting them.
It's like, God bless enchantressfive drop, I don't care,
whatever.
She still stops so many of thesecrazy weirdo combos now.
And honestly thinking about it.

(32:36):
That's maybe something Hammondhas going for him.
I'm always incredulous of like areally strong one drop because
kill longer existed, but hedoesn't affect the whole board
anymore.
He is only one lane.
Like he can diversify power.
Like, so it's like that's a,that's actually a bonus for him
if you can get him crazy.
'Cause like Kill Longer is justnot as, as powerful and
prevalent and, uh, oppressive tothe board as it used to be.

(32:57):
But yeah, like Red Guardiantaking a hit, but it's like a
Minoru hit.
He still does his thing.
Rogue is still around.
I guess there's still, there'sstill ways to deal with stuff.
But the Shank Xi one, but ShankXi still good.
Like how many times do you havelike multiple what if you were
playing a deck with a lot oflike raw, right?

(33:18):
Are you gonna put like 3, 4, 10drops in one lane and then just
pray for another lane?
You're gonna spread it out,right?
Especially if you've got a leadand it's like killing more than
one 10 drop in a lane.
Steals like a win more scenarioanyway.
Right?
So it's like, okay.
I still think he's not that bad.
I think he probably still, Ithink people immediately think
he stinks, and I don't thinkhe's probably been nursed

(33:38):
enough.
Honestly, no.
First of all, he's wayoverheated.
It's

Alex (33:41):
necessary.
These cards are necessary.
Yeah, he absolutely is.
He's way overheated.
His win rate's always hoveringaround 51%.
Like it's crazy.
People hate this card, butrealistically he's not that much
of a problem.
The only circumstance that I canthink of where you usually have
more than one 10 power card, youcan do that in inserter, which
is one of the reasons why those,that those decks tend to be
doing good right now.
Right now.
But also some locations likeMeir Island will often just

(34:04):
casually buff things to 10 powerOlle will get things to 10 power
and then like wipe that wholelane.
So there are some circcircumstances like that, but you
are generally correct.
Right.
I would suspect that we're in aposition where you either keep
it four two with the old text oryou bring it back to like, I
don't even know if fourth threeis enough.
I think that destroying only asingle card is enough of a Nerf

(34:26):
that I wonder if they do like afour four that does that.
But I don't think we're gonna bekeeping both.
I think that Shachi will beback.
In some form, whether itdestroys all the cards and stays
at a four two or destroys asingle car but ends up at four
three or four four, I don'tthink we're gonna see Shanxi
remain like this.
'cause I think it's just alittle too much downside.
Now you did bring up Killmongeras well.

(34:48):
We'll go there next.
Killmonger was a very, I thinkthis is one of the more
impactful of the nerves.
Like if anything, this is waytoo far.
This is way too far.
Killmonger now reads a threethree on reveal, destroy all one
cost cards here.
It used to be a board wideeffect.
Now it's only an effect for thegiven location.

(35:11):
Could you still use it?
Of course.
But this is obviously givingsome credence to the idea of,
well maybe zoo's gonna make abit of a comeback.
But yeah.
What are your general thoughtson Killmonger?
Do you think it remains thisway?

Ryan (35:21):
Yeah, I saw, I mean, I've been running into a lot of zoo
lately.
And, uh.
I don't know.
I think he's, I think he's gottahit all board as powerful of an
effect that is like a lot of thegame was designed around this
car existing.
Yeah.
And with him gone, like when thecat's away and the mice are
going god damn insane.
Sorry not to get crass here.

(35:41):
But it's cra like, they're likezoo decks can do whatever they
want now, and there's some crazyzoo combos.
And without, the thing aboutthese cards that were all nerfed
in this last thing wasn't thatthey existed so much as the
threat of them existed.
Right?
Like, even just like what mightstop you from running a, a zoo
deck or, or plopping stuff downis the fact that you were

(36:03):
worried about this card beingplayed.
And now that it's taken out ofthe equation, it, it changes
their, your whole choice dynamicwhen you're constructing a deck
and you're playing cards, right?
It's like, oh, do I wanna putall this stuff in a lane because
I, you know, Shang exists?
Well now, you know, Shangdoesn't really exist anymore.
So like, it changes the way youplay, changes the way you're

(36:24):
designing your deck.
Um, and, and without thatimplicit threat of these cards
just being around it definitelyis impacting the game in strange
ways.
I think he will have, he's oneof the ones I think that will
have to come back to all board.
I don't know that Chang, I thinktill monger.

Alex (36:40):
I think Killmonger definitely has to come back.
Its effect, I think is toocrippling because if you think
about it, it's also like, it'sused primarily, okay, first of
all, you have the Sierra controldecks, which would use
Killmonger as a tech piece,right?
But then when you had the incre,like the actual usage of, well,
I'm playing Moreira, I'mplaying, you know, Deadpool, I'm
playing Destroy.
And Killmonger's a key componentto that.
And one of the benefits ofKillmonger was, you know, you do

(37:02):
have a card like, you know, um,X 23 who bounces around
randomly, and you could stillactivate that card depending on
what position your Deadpool wasin or whatever, right?
With Killmonger, you didn't haveto worry about where those were
positioned, and now you do.
So I think it really, reallydoes limit this card.
Is zoo making a comeback?
Yes, we're gonna talk about itin the next topic of

(37:24):
conversation, but yeah, I wouldsuspect that Killmonger goes
back to where he was.
I don't think he's even gonnalose power.
He felt like one of thenecessary evils of Marvel Snap.
Uh, especially considering youdo have cards like Kira, like if
Killmonger's a problem buffKira, like really?
If you buff ra, then she becomesmore valuable to play.
Make her a three five.
'Cause right now she sits at athree four's armor.

(37:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Buff armor.
I actually think that armor islow key.
I can't find RA for whatever.
I always make fun of Cozy whenyou can't find cards and not,
and now I can't do it, but RAcould easily be a three five and
that in an effect, is a Nerf tokill monger.
Yeah.
So I definitely see thatpotentially being the case.
Like you could go the kairaroute.
Bring that card back.
Now I went to the four dropsbecause I was looking for the

(38:08):
enchanters.
Enc Charis.
Now you did bring it up before.
Enc Charis is a five eight froma four six to a five eight.
Still the same effect.
I'll tell you Enc Charis isstill making some of the
traditional decks.
It was in the, like the likes ofNightmare and Serer.
It's still making those shells.
I don't think this was that muchof a nerve.
It is a big nerve, but when Iwas playing those decks, I'm

(38:31):
often holding in Enchanters onturn five.
I'm like, wow.
They actually, they playedsomething that I can disable
like the later you kinda getmore perspective as you wait
later in the game sometimes.
And so I don't actually feellike this was that heavy handed.

Ryan (38:44):
No, I don't either.
Like I, I think it's stillvaluable.
I think it's still worthplaying.
I, um, and just costing a littlemore doesn't change many of the
decisions you make with thiscard.
Um, and like you said, a lot oftimes you hold it till, end of
turn, end of game.
Rather you're dropping this onfive or six anyway.
To mess up some combo.
You're throwing priority becauseyou know, a cerebral is coming

(39:06):
and you're dropping her on six,you know, that sort of thing.
So it's like, okay, all right.
Five and a five eight is a goodStalin stat line.
Like, it's not like she'sunderstanded for five.
So it's like, okay.
Like it's not huge, but any sortof Nerf if it says Nerf, like
people immediately assume itstinks now.
And like, so everyone droppedher for a minute and I think

(39:29):
everyone's gonna come back.
Because there are so many combodecks right now, like combos are
going crazy.
And I, and like, yeah, likethat's where you hold that,
where most people hold theirtech is for the end of game.
So it's like, make her a sixcall if you want.
It's not gonna matter.
You're gonna play her at the endof the game.
Same for like, uh, shadow King.
It's like he's a two drop, butyou hardly ever play him on
curve.
He's a two drop that you pay onsix or five, you know?

(39:51):
Yes, exactly.

Alex (39:52):
Yeah.
One thing worth noting though,and this is probably the primary
avenue for the Nerf, is that nolonger are you gonna have those
like tech slop decks that kindof run Zbu, and then Honers,
ENC, Chaus, Gwenpool, Galata.
And they just have like a bunchof answers alongside tech and
then they'll also run other,they basically, Sarah Control
would run the Zbu, Sarah, andthen a whole bunch of tech swap

(40:13):
inside, right?
Including Red Guardian and stufflike that.
And so I guess the Za synergy isremoved going to a five, but
this one here has felt prettygood.
You did touch on it brieflyhere.
Shadow King, honestly, goingfrom a two, two to a three
three, this car started as afour four, I think ironically in
Marvel Snap.
Uh, but that was with theongoing era of Zbu.
Like literally Zbu was anongoing, that discu discounted,

(40:36):
uh, cards.
Right?
So three.
Three.
What are your thoughts?

Ryan (40:42):
Yeah, I still run him.
He's still good.
I mean, especially now, like Isaid, there's crazy decks that
are doing.
I'm seeing a lot of like peopleexperimenting with nightmare
again and with the ongoing or,or removal of the ongoings with
like soran and stuff.
Which I, I like those'causethose are just natural beef.

(41:03):
But then I see a lot of, um, Isee a lot of human torch combo
decks and things like that.
A lot of bounce, a lot of movebalance that are getting some
crazy power.
And you, you need a card thatresets them.
If you're, if you can't shang'emand you can't kill longum, you
need something.
So, uh, I, I do think, like I, Isaid I do think it's crazy that
so many of the tech cards gotnerfed.

(41:24):
But he's still good at three.
And I always would hold himuntil late game anyway.
So it's like, all right, now Ican't play like a four and a two
on six.
I can't do, and I play a threeand a three.
It's like, okay.
It's a slight variation on howlike my end of game goes.
But it's like I still run in, ina lot of my decks.
'cause you have to,'causethere's so much out there.

Alex (41:44):
This is the one where I will admit that I honestly don't
know.
Like I really don't know ifthey're gonna revert'em to a
two.
Two, keep mine as a three.
Three because this is one of theones that has been very
contentious.
And also because at yourmiddling MMRs and people kind of
getting towards infinite shadow,king doesn't see a lot of play.
It really doesn't.
I feel like it's one of thecards.
It does disproportionately getplayed at higher MMRs in

(42:06):
tournament settings and stufflike that, as it should be.
Like it's an excellent card, butit doesn't feel like the
catchall that Shachi felt likeit's played significantly less
despite its immensely powerfuleffect.
This one, honestly, I thinksecond enter just.
Take as much data as you can andsee where it ends up, uh,
placing.
But, uh, yeah, myself, I, I'mtruly not quite sure, and when

(42:26):
we're talking about three drops,one of the three drops that was
very prevalent in Marvel Snap,that for some people seemed to
just come outta nowhere, wasNeonic Teenage Warhead.
Negasonic sat in the game forthe longest time, seeing
absolutely no play.
Fenris Wolf comes out, peopleare like, ah, do we play next?
Nah, we're not gonna playNegasonic.
Then all of a sudden neonicseverywhere, especially in the
era of initiative based MarvelSnap, you get these, uh, you

(42:48):
know, these iron patriot styledecks that want to have power on
the board early, want to takeadvantage of positioning.
You have the new Galactus firststeps that came out last month,
and suddenly Negasonic becomesperpetually played across the
meta to the point that they hadto change it from a three three
to a four five.
This is a very heavy Nerf.

(43:08):
And, um, yeah, I think that, uh,this is one of the ones.
I suspect will get reverted, butnot right away.
I bet you Negasonic.
I think they're gonna put her intime out for a little bit.
I think this is a car that sitsus four, five for a little bit
and then once the meta settlesdown, they'll probably do
something else to her to kind ofbring her back.
But I think she takes a timeout.

Ryan (43:28):
Yeah, I think she is.
She's another one.
She's like shadow king, likeshe's one that you throw in a
lane that you're already winningand uh, you maintain your win.
Like, so it's like I actually amstill running her in I have a
Viv deck that I've been runningand I use her just, you know, to
maintain the lane that visit.

(43:50):
But it's like, she almost like ajug where it's like you drop her
you have priority going into sixand you drop her in a lane.
And that pretty much guaranteesin a lot of instances that you
win the lane.
Especially now, no one's playingaround her.
And it's like, all right, I knowI've got this lane locked now.
So it's like, all right, this isa, it's a guaranteed late winner
at three or four.
And it's like, so I don't know.

(44:11):
I don't know if she comes back.
I don't know.
I have a love hate with her.
I didn't like her before I runher, and I hate that I run her,
but she's so good.
But like, I don't like thesurprise factor of like, haha,
my trap card, I had prioritygoing into this turn.
I dropped her.
You didn't know.
You had no reason to know thiswas coming and you lost a card.

(44:31):
Haha, I win.
I don't love that mechanic butit's so strong.
You gotta do it right.
So I'm okay with her beingnerfed.
I don't think the Nerf wasenough.
I think it's interesting as I'mlooking through the OTA stuff
too, it's like, and going rightbefore we go into Elias, like
Shang Chi is a card.
You, you don't want priority,right?

(44:52):
You want them to play their bigcards and you play the, you want
Shang Q second.
You want kill longer, you wannachra a second, you wanna be
going second shadow king, youwanna be going second mega.
So you wanna go first.
You wanna play that first.
You wanna have priority andalliance.
You want priority.
So it's like this is a four totwo so far.

(45:12):
OTA that affected second versus

Alex (45:15):
first.
Right?
It's kind of interesting tothink of it that way too.
And uh, which is justinteresting.
It is interesting.
And also you have cards likeAlyth.
You talk about like destroyingthings and making your point of
feel bad.
The OG Alyth.
For those that don't remember,used to just dis like literally
delete the card, right?
Whether you pour it, that cardwas just, those cards just
disappeared off the field ofplay.

(45:35):
Talking about making the end ofthe game completely irrelevant.
That's what Elias used to do.
It doesn't do that anymore.
However, it got changed from asix nine to a six six.
That is an absolutely gargantuanNerf because now that the cards
still maintain their powers, butthey don't have their text, you
can still like lose a lane.

(45:56):
Like if they play a magneto andyou Elia at it, like you still
just lose that lane, right?
Obviously it was a good catchoff or stuff like cerebral being
played late, but now you havebastion, so maybe cerebrals plea
orders being changed.
Alyth, I've not seen a singlelyth since this change.
It has completely fallen off.
So I ask you, do you thinkthey'll revert this at all?

(46:18):
I suspect that we're gonna seesome more power on eith.
I don't know if it goes back tosix nine, but I don't think it's
gonna stay as a six six.

Ryan (46:25):
I think it has to go back if it wants to get, if they want
anyone to play it.
I forgot I had it in a deck andwas playing a deck the other day
and then I lost that three powerwas, was a big deal.
And even though I wiped thecards, I still didn't have
enough power in that lane.
But like six, six is pretty low.
So it's a question of like howoppressive this was in their
background data.
Like was this an unfun card toplay against?

(46:48):
Yeah, but it also like, it's soobvious.
It's always like you findyourself all the time going into
six.
I'm like, what beats me?
And a lot of times it's like anIan.
All right, how do I play aroundit?
You know?
Does this sort of deck runalliance like Ian was way more
telegraphed usually.
Um, and it, I think this is likea pretty big nerve.
I'm speaking anecdotally, thedata might indicate it is or it

(47:09):
isn't.
I'm just like, from what I'veseen in personal experience,
I've like lost because of thatthree power because it's so bad
at a six power.
Um, it is, but maybe this is asignificant nerve.
Maybe it's not.
Yeah, it is.
It's pretty

Alex (47:21):
significant.
Yeah.
Um, and then Cosmo got changedfrom a three three to a four
six.
And we have one more card afterthis, which is maybe one of the
biggest nerves we actually saw.
But we do have Cosmo window, afour six, and, uh, I mean, I
wasn't actually seeing muchCosmo, and this is where you're
saying, Hey, uh, we're seeinglots of combo decks making a bit
of a comeback here.
Cosmo has a four six is, Iwouldn't say deleted from the

(47:45):
meta because you're oftenchasing that effect.
Right?
You're chasing the effect.
I had this thought though, thatyou remove Enchanters from the
Ford pool.
You add Cosmo from the fourpool.
Can you then still run a zaobased tech slot deck but have
Cosmo instead of enchanters?
I think the answer's no.
Probably, but still I find thatinteresting.
I'm leaning towards Cosal beingreverted.

(48:06):
I'm curious about your thoughts.

Ryan (48:08):
Yeah, I mean, this feels like almost a Nerf to cerebral
because it was one way thatCerebro could hide behind,
right?
Like well see a lot of C sixes.
Four, six is also like a bigturn.
Um, yeah, it seems notunplayable, but definitely a big
Nerf, like this card has to godown early and it, you use it to

(48:30):
protect like vulnerable lanesand it's like you're gonna
dedicate your entire middle turnof the game to like protecting a
lane.
It's harder to catch people offguard with it.
It's all four is a lot of, uh,power to or energy to invest.
This one I feel like goes back,this has to be a three or even,
it could be a two cost.
Like this has to be just forlike the, the general meta I

(48:53):
feel like.
So this one, this one I foundsurprising.
I also didn't, like you said, Ididn't find cosmo like super
oppressive in the meta.
I didn't feel like it was likesomething that was crushing.
It's just the right before theOTA, the place I saw the most
was Yeah, in like protectingcerebral or protecting like
certain, moonstone combo lanesor something like that, you

(49:14):
know?

Alex (49:14):
Yeah, for sure.
And uh, yeah, as I said.
Cosmo not seeing the most playwas primarily being seen in C3
for the most part, and, uh, nowis no longer a part of that.
What was not seeing play in C3and maybe the bane of c three's
existence was the red guardian.
This was insane.
Going from a three, two, he wasa three three at launch.
Now he's a three zero.

(49:35):
With the same effect afflictingnegative two power and removing
card's text.
When I saw this change, it waslike they actually took Red
Guardian behind the shed andwhat was also interesting is
they just finished selling alike a hundred dollars bundle
with red guard, like the me redguardian bundle.
Imagine spending a hundreddollars on a red guardian
bundle, then the card gettingabsolutely obliterated like two
days later.

(49:56):
It goes against the saying thatlike, oh second enter is gonna
buff cars that they're sellingin bundles and stuff.
Well, this was the oppositecase, so that's a check in that
box I guess.
But for the record, I think thisis absolutely getting reverted
especially since you do haveCosmo Ghost Rider that's now
running rampant in its place.
I probably see Red Guardremaining as a three two moving
forward.
This is probably just a flash inthe pan type Nerf.

Ryan (50:19):
Yeah, I agree.
Maybe a free one, but like Ithink they'll put this one back
to normal.
Red Guardian was probably thebest design tech card out of
like all the tech cards in thegame because it had a good
effect.
But you could protect againstit, right?
It's like, oh, you've got avulnerable card.
Put something that weaker thatit will hit.

(50:40):
There are ways to play aroundit.
There are ways to like kind ofsidestep it.
It again, good card design andgood game design.
It puts the decision on theplayer, right?
And like different options and,and play styles.
So I thought, I didn't thinkthis was like an incredibly
oppressive card to begin with.
I'm super surprised thishappened.
And when you see anything go tozero power, then your brain just

(51:01):
goes, I don't know.
I'll put it in a Mr.
Negative deck.
Kind of similar to Cosmo.
If anything goes to four, yourbrain just goes, all right, Zao,
can I use it with Zao?
And if anything goes to three,you do at least a cursory check
where you're like, all right,does this work with Surfer?
So it's like, yeah, I see zeropower.
I'm like maybe in an investnegative deck, but not even Mr.
Negative's got a pretty setshell.
I don't think this really helpsMr.

(51:23):
Negative at any anyway.
So yeah, all it does is.
Ruin this card.

Alex (51:28):
Yeah, it does.
And I guess the next thingthat's worth talking about is
like, do we think that thisapproach to balance is a good
one?
This is obviously, it surpriseda lot of people, first of all,
the, the way they kind ofintroduced it with the robot.
Text and speak and all thatstuff.
I think that's kind of funny.
They can only do that so oftenuntil it gets annoying though.
And I think that they're verywell, well aware of that.
They saw an opportunity giventhe type of season and they, I

(51:50):
guess they've been playing thisfor some time, can they do like
a really big meta shakeup withkind of like, kind of taking
tech out in particularly thetech that's popular, right?
There's obviously other techcards that don't see as much
play like, I mean, even like aLuke Cage stole a popular tech
card.
They didn't like remove it fromthe game.
They got a bunch of the real.
Like kind of the, the checks andbalances tech.
And they took it to the waysidefor this particular week.

(52:12):
And that's why I discussed it aslike an imbalance patch.
It really is exactly that.
They're gonna be reverting muchof this and that is their
intention.
The only problem is, is thatwhen you boot up the game for
the first time and it shows youthe patch changes, it doesn't
say like, Hey, most of these areprobably getting reverted in the
next couple weeks.
There's probably gonna be a lotof really confused casual
players out there, and that'smaybe something they have to

(52:32):
consider moving forward as tohow they can communicate how
these changes are likelytemporary.
But for me, as someone who likesmaking content for the game,
enjoys playing the game andhonestly appreciates a meta
shakeup every once in a while, Iabsolutely do not mind them
taking chances at like, thesehome run big changes, these big
shakeups.
In fact, the.

(52:53):
X-Men imbalance patch was one ofmy favorite patches that they
had ever done.
And so I'm all for these typesof things.
But I think they shouldcommunicate it better because I
think there is a lot ofconfusion out in the community
as to whether or not these arepermanent changes or whether or
not they'll be reverted backover time.
So I'm curious to your thoughtsas to whether or not you like

(53:13):
this approach to balance thislike temporary shakeup style, or
should we be seeking perfectbalance at all costs all the
time?

Ryan (53:21):
No I liked the shakeup for sure.
It's interesting.
This game is very interesting inhow it's approached by the
developers.
And by'cause like there's noreal competitive scene, right?
So, but they don't have to thenaccount for the competitive
scene in a way, I feel like whenthey made all these changes, we
were all like, oh wow.

(53:41):
Holy crap.
This is crazy.
This is meta defining.
But then they, it released thestatement afterwards saying
like, it's probably temporary.
Everything will go back tonormal.
In which case you're exact, theywrite, they call it a balance in
patch or, or a balance,imbalanced patch.
But those are fun because weknow they're temporary.
And also you need a baits tolike start from, you know what I

(54:04):
mean?
It's like we have to establishwhat the border, the baseline is
and then we say, Hey, we'regonna get weird for a couple
weeks and do a bunch of weirdstuff and it's gonna go back and
this is sort of doing it andsort of not.
So I think yeah, in themessaging, they need to figure
that out because you definitelyhave to establish what the
baseline is.
But part of the reason I lovethis game so much is because of
the OTAs and because it'sconstantly evolving and things

(54:26):
like that.
So it's like, I welcome it.
I wish they would do more stufflike this.
But I wish they would, since weknow this is all gonna go back
to normal, I wish they would'vejust said it to be in with.
Like, Hey, this is just gonna bea weird season.
We'll, getting rid of tech cardsfor a minute and, uh, we'll
call, we'll brand it something,we'll call it the slop list
season.
And for just four weeks it'sjust gonna be no tech cards.

(54:49):
Go wild.
See, see what you could come upwith.
Almost like they're making a newmode without making a new mode.
And then go back to a normal,like, so you'd have to establish
what the normal is.
So I am, I'm waiting to see whatcomes back and how it comes back
though, for sure.
Yeah, and I've seen that aswell.
Missed this.
Yeah.

Alex (55:08):
Yeah, for sure.
And on that note, we should talkabout the best t be playing post
OTA and the general archetypes,right?
And the decks are still beingfigured out.
But I'm gonna start you withlike one that is definitely
making a comeback and that isZoo Gilgamesh is played
primarily in zoo, and as wediscussed with, uh, with
Killmonger being set to thewayside, zoo is making a
comeback here.

(55:29):
We're seeing a zoo deck rightnow.
And I've been, we've beentalking so much about Zu Deck.
We talked about it on the decksof the week.
Currently with updated stats andmore games, it's running a 61%
win rate, which is absolutelyinsane.
And a 0.43 Q rate.
So we're talking about zooperforming exceptionally well
right now, uh, with Kilmore setaside for the next couple of
weeks.

(55:49):
That is probably surprising noone, because that was the
primary check and balance being,uh, being left in place there.
In your opinion, what's a deckthat's worth playing right now
post OTA?

Ryan (56:00):
I used to love Zoo.
I'm still running Zoo every nowand again, um, with Marrow.
Like I still had a Marble Boypackage that just ran Kayra and
it's so crazy that like with killogger going, you don't have to
run re anymore.
And that opens up apparently aworld of possibilities all of a
sudden.
Like it's, uh, it's crazy that,that, that one small.

(56:21):
Change, like just taking onecard out of the equip.
Otherwise, if you weren'trunning Kyra, then you just had
to pray that you weren't runningkill longer.
Right?
Yeah.
So it's like that's crazy thatthat one small change would then
boost this to such a high, ahigh win rate.
But it's a good car, it's a gooddeck that can spread power out.
I always really enjoyed zoo.
It's also a fairly easy deck toput together.

(56:43):
If you were like a lowercollection level or you're just
chasing a few handful of cardshalf this deck, half the deck of
a solid zoo deck are like a pullthree or lower cards, right?
Yeah.
It's like you only need a couplestandout cards to be pretty
competitive.
And without having to worryabout any tech you can.
And also what's good, what thebet, what's the best about zoo
is you compete in all threelanes.

(57:04):
It's like, this is a deck thatgoes very wide.
You can also move around like,uh, weird locations with Shanna
and stuff like that, andSquirrel Girl, which will put
cards in like dead lanes.
Like let's say, uh, there's alane that will destroy all your
cards.
It's like, well, squirrel Girlwill throw free cards in that
lane.
You'd be surprised how many justeasy wins you get off, things

(57:25):
like that.
I always really liked zoo.
I think it's a good deck.
I'm glad that it's competitivenow.
Even though earlier I was sayinghow I want kill longer to go
back to normal, because I thinkso much of the game is designed
around the existential threat ofa kill monitor.
But this is a fun deck.
I highly recommend it if you areespecially like a lower cl.

(57:46):
This is a good deck to puttogether.
It's still competitive.
I still run it and I do, I wasdoing all with it, but like I
was saying before, the OTA, likeit's, it was still kind of one
of these fringe decks where youcan.
How sometimes you'll hit alosing streak and just be like,
you just go back from little oneof my old trusty standby decks.
It's like my Marvel Boys zoo.
I never deleted it.
Same with like a, just a classicdestroy package.

(58:07):
Doesn't matter, the meta,doesn't matter what, like a
classic destroy deck always canhang around and compete.
And

Alex (58:14):
this was like one of those.
And another archetype when we'retalking about one drops that are
having a, a pretty solid impacthere.
Another one that's worth talkingabout honestly is going to be
the packages that run Beast,like those bounce packages
because you're talking aboutcards that like Silver Sable,
rocket, raccoon, Iceman, NicoManaroo in those Joaquin Phoenix
type bounce shells.

(58:35):
Because one of the challengesthose decks had was that
Killmonger would wipe out theirturn six.
Now you often were able tobounce and give initiative up
going into turn six or whatever,but playing with initiative was.
Would only take you so far,Killmonger would still wipe
those decks out.
So when you have the likes ofBounce, you have the Joaquin
Torres Falcon, you have the uh,the Falcon himself, you have

(58:56):
toxin, you have this shellthat'll honestly allow you to do
so much bounce work with onedrops and now the risk of
Killmonger's gone.
And so those are starting tomake a bit of a comeback.
And then of course we talkedabout it before, but like how
can we not bring up Serer?
Serer is one of the onlyexamples where you often have
more than one 10 power card in agiven location because sometimes

(59:18):
you're playing col sit in, yougotta throw things down and you
gotta get that serer up to powerso you can slam down the scar.
This is a card that is making amassive comeback.
Anderer itself was actuallysusceptible to the Lac of Shadow
King as well.
Not just Shachi, but ShadowKing.
The rest of the deck, not somuch, but searcher specifically.
So give me an idea, like howconfident would you be playing

(59:39):
Serer in this meta'cause I feellike it is an excellent call
alongside zoo, honestly.

Ryan (59:45):
I think these are, like, Cerner decks are great.
Like, uh, I've been running intoa lot of them on the ladder.
I used to run a lot of like, soon red skull sort of stuff.
And it was, those were, I alwaysenjoyed those decks also because
like, those are ones where like,you don't have to think where
it's just like put big carddown, done.

(01:00:05):
Like, I don't, there's not a lotof decisions to make.
It's just big stats slamming theboard.
But which is like the oppositeof bounce when we were, we're
talking about, uh, 10 minutegames.
That's bounce for me where Ihave to like do all these
calculations where it's like,all right, I pulled this back.
This will get my hand to seven.
It won't pull these two.
This'll b this will buff thesetwo.

(01:00:26):
I'm like having to run quadraticformulas in my brain.
BII enjoy bounce'cause it's fun,but it is a lot of like thinking
and a lot of math.
That's one you gotta like reallybe, uh, on top of your game
while you pilot, but.
Just a solid, big, beefy twodigit sta deck.
That's great.

Alex (01:00:45):
Yeah, no, it definitely is a lot of fun taking power, boom,
slamming on the ground, yeah.
It's, it's one of those, thosedecks and those archetypes, and
honestly, if they feel like theyplay so well because they're,
they're really straightforwardin their play pattern.
They put up significant powerand you can confidently win
games with them, especially withShachi on the periphery of the
meta.
And Ryan, I think that it's timethat we go to our Snapchat

(01:01:06):
mailbag.
What do you think?
We got a couple questions herefrom the community members here
and, uh, we've been having a lotof conversations about like the
number of cards being released,the health of the game and stuff
like that.
And it wouldn't surprise me thata bunch of the questions were
along those lines.
Uh, so, uh, Copa comes in with astatement that reads another
thing that's worth.
Another thing that's reallydetrimental to Snap is that you,

(01:01:28):
when you fall behind, no matterfor what reason or how long,
there are no catchup mechanics,there's no pity, no welcome back
bonus, no nothing.
I missed a whole month.
Last month.
I was just super busy and now Ihave negative Mevo uh,
motivation to get back into theswing of things.
And I think that is a commonsentiment that it's like once

(01:01:48):
you put the game down, you'renot coming back.
It's nearly impossible to catchup.
And as someone who gets as busyas they do, Ryan, do you ever
feel like you, you like yougotta just stay on top or else
if you fall behind, you're done?
No,

Ryan (01:02:01):
absolutely.
That is 100% a real sentiment.
And if, uh, if there was onechange I could make in this
game, it would be like, yeah.
Like more, I don't know, notpresence, but like more, more
focused on new user acquisition.
Yeah.
'cause it's like.
It is hard.
Like a card a week is reallycool.

(01:02:22):
I, one of the benefits of thegame is we're getting a card a
week.
The meta changes consistently.
Yeah.
Like all over the place.
Right.
But one of the detriments isthat like, yeah, you miss a week
or two, you're two cards behind.
You're a season pass behind.
All the sudden it's like, yeahyou'll never catch up without
spending a ton of money.
So like a welcome back bonus andthat sort of thing, which is not

(01:02:42):
uncommon for a bunch of games.
I feel like for a three Yearoldgame or every year, three, like
how long has this been gamegoing on?
Feels like that's like anecessary like move to make to
try to like boost up new playersup to folks like us that are
collection complete.
Right.
Because they take for grantedthe fact that I'm like, oh, but
it's like I'm to collectioncomplete and I'm starting to

(01:03:03):
fall behind.
I had to use the last of mytokens to get bastion.
I'm not gonna have enough tokensfor the next card for, uh.
For the, our fifth human torch.
So it's like, I don't, like,ooh, also, this would be the
first time I'm like, do I wannainvest in that card?
You know, that sort of thing.
But I think that sentiment fromthat person is a percent

(01:03:24):
accurate, and I agree with them.
And that would be like one thingI would, I would change is uh,
yeah, because even like,actually, ironically, like it's
for new players.
Yeah.

Alex (01:03:33):
Yeah.
Like I'm at PS and I'm talkingwith people and they're saying
like, oh, I love the game, butlike.
I don't, I can't come back.
Like it's just, I have noopportunity to kind of bridge
the gap that I've now created.
And these are people that wouldlikely continue playing if they
felt like they could have apositive experience getting back
into the swing of things.
But they just feel like they'reso long gone.
And the Met is always evolvingto the point where it's like,

(01:03:53):
well, a good thing.
It's like they'll never catchup.
And I think that is like a, itfeels like a hill that seems
impossible to climb.
Risen comes in with the nextquestion, which reads, it's not
even the fact that I don't haveenough tokens to buy all of
those new cards.
It's the fact that there areliterally too many cards being
released too fast.
So the new decks and the cardsbarely have time to evolve and

(01:04:14):
shine before the new stuff comesout.
And Ryan, this is exactly whatwe were talking about before.
Things don't have a chance tobreathe.

Ryan (01:04:23):
Yeah.
I think if there was like I, Ithink something that would be
beneficial would be a new mode.
I, this was like something theytalked about in, uh, an old an
old like runway plan theyreleased.
But it was like talking aboutsome sort of draft mode where if

(01:04:44):
you could, if you didn't have acomplete collection but you were
able to go in kinda like, likeHeart Stone has that mode and
you were able to just piece adeck together where you like
pick one of three cards sort ofthing and build a deck and then
just like in the arena and justlike battle it out.
Like some sort of mode likethat, some sort of drafting mode
where you could play with cardsyou don't own just to mess
around with them, I think wouldbe enough to bring it back.

(01:05:06):
Old players that aren't complexand would, they would feel less
of the pressure to getcollection complete, but because
there's only one way to playthis game and it's to have as
many cards as possible and haveaccess to all the best stuff or
else you're gonna run up againstpeople, you know who will have
it and you don't, you, you alsowill get frustrated.
Right.
So it's like, I, I think that'ssomething that would like bridge

(01:05:26):
the gap.

Alex (01:05:27):
No, for sure.
And again, these are questionsthat honestly I, I spend a lot
of time thinking about, and Ithink the second dinner does as
well.
There are no easy answers.
Like you can kinda be like, welljust make everything free or
like, do, but then like you,like at the same time, like we
don't know their businessrequirements, we don't know
their licensing requirements.
We don't know, you know, wedon't want the game to be
completely insolvent because wewanted everything free.

(01:05:49):
But at the same time, it's like,it's a real issue when players
feel like they can't playanymore because they can't keep
up or they can't even getinvolved or come back because
they'll never catch up.
And, uh, yeah, the releaseschedule feels really intense
and like, as you said, likeyou're, you're out of tokens,
right?
So the situation you're in isyou either you start skipping
things or you pulled to the mostpowerful card in Marvel Snap,

(01:06:09):
which is the credit card, right?
And that's basically the onlyanswer you have left.
Right?
And I think that that's wheresome people might be like, okay,
now I'm in a position where Ieither pay up or I quit, I guess
I quit.
And that's a kind of unfortunatething.
And uh, we are seeing more andmore of that, uh, in Marvel
Snap.
Given the circumstance with thenumber of cards being released
and the fact that they've notgotten less expensive.

(01:06:30):
I shouldn't say that because theSnap packs did generally improve
the rate of card acquisition,but it was immediately offset by
the number of cards beingreleased.
Right.
So there was no, there was nospan of time where people were
like, I'm playing catch up.
This feels great.
It's like, no, I'm just gettingwrecked.
Right.
And I can, I can kind of reallyfeel the player's sentiment
there with regards to how thatfeels.
It's easy for me to say,

Ryan (01:06:50):
I'm not a developer or an engineer.
It's easy to say like, oh, justmake a new mode, you know?
Yeah.
But with that I know there's alot going into it, but part of
what I was kind of hoping withall these new carts coming out,
like they're dropping, like allof a sudden we'll just get a
shadow drop of like four newcards outta nowhere.
I was hoping that was likeprecipitating the release of

(01:07:11):
like a draft mode.
We're like, Hey, we gotta bumpup the card pool because there's
a new mode coming and there'sstill no new mode.
And I, it was on the roadmap, soI'm not making it up.
I'm just like.
Please give us that draft mode,give us a draft mode.
And I think that would, I

Alex (01:07:26):
think

Ryan (01:07:26):
it would

Alex (01:07:26):
fix a lot

Ryan (01:07:27):
of issues like with

Alex (01:07:28):
the new players.
Grand Arena came close.
I think Grand Arena was by farthe best mode that they've
designed.
And if they were to have a kindof a rotating cast of Grand
Arena commanders, so to speak, Ithink that would go a long way.
Yeah, that would go a long way.
Rob comes in with our nextquestion, which reads regarding
infinite grind, difficultyincreases.
It may be related to botadjustments too, but I believe

(01:07:49):
it's mostly due to casualplayers having left the game in
droves, leaving behind a playerbase distilled to very
competitive degrees.
TLDR, high percentage of playerbase now sweats, sticking it out
during snaps decline.
This is a comment in regards,Ryan to the feeling that like
getting to, it's been way harderin the past, like way harder now

(01:08:09):
than it's been in the past.
It feels way more grinding.
And a big part of that is Ithink that they've increased and
improved.
Bots.
Like the bots are actually like,they're snipers now, man.
Like they're doing some soulcrushing plays where like they
will beat you.
Whereas like bots felt like aninfusion of cubes in the old
system.
Now they're like legitimateopponents that you kind of gotta
be wary of at times.
You still get the odd throwrobot, which like will play the

(01:08:31):
0% win rate play.
But, um, there has been a largeconsensus of at least my
community, that people arefinding ranking dividend
extremely frustrating and a bigturnoff.
And so I ask you, how has yourranking process been in the last
couple of months?
And has it felt exhausting?

Ryan (01:08:52):
Yeah, it definitely felt harder in the last, I wanna say,
since like the spring, even likenow, granted I'm, super busy.
I don't play as consistently asother people.
I always make sure to get in acouple games a day.
I always hit my dailies and thenlike.
Over the weekend, I'll grind alittle harder and it's like, I'm

(01:09:12):
just limping infinite.
Like right at the end of aseason is where I've been, what
I've been doing the last few,uh, seasons and like as I'm
limping to the finish line, itwas incredibly hard.
And I'm doing it at the end ofthe season, season.
I'm doing it in the last twoweeks of a season, one week,
maybe even the last like, fivedays of a season.
And, uh, part of me is thinkinglike, hasn't everyone already

(01:09:33):
made it to Infinite?
Who am I playing against?
I'm, aren't I like the lastperson that would show up at the
party?
So am I just getting likecrushed by like sniper boss or
what?
But it does feel a little moresweaty than it used to.
It used to be an easier climbor, or a steady climb.
It feels like it's way morefeast or famine, but it's so
anecdotal.
I'm like, eh, maybe I'm just notmaking the right plays.

(01:09:54):
You know, I, I'm always like,eh, it's, it's a me thing.
So it's hard without seeing anydata, it's hard to like point to
the game and be like, no, it'sthe game's fault.
I'm like, no, it's probably myfault.
But.
Enough people are saying itcould be, I don't know.
And also like, I don't know, Imean, this was the number one
mobile game when it dropped,right?
So obviously the game playerbase is deteriorated.

(01:10:17):
All games will, like no Game hasthe same user base that it had
at its peak.
I mean, Fortnite is still hugeand it's not as huge as it was
at its peak though, so it's likeall games have the same
trajectory of like, and thengroup, heart Stone was group and
it's not dead, but it's not whatit was.
Right.
So it's like, it's hard to like,keep things in perspective.

(01:10:39):
Um, I like we are, we are sayingthings and we've talked
personally.
You and I have talked at themeetup, we talked to devs and
stuff.
They're all aware of it.
I'm curious like what is in thepipeline is the only thing.
But yes, it has felt grindier ata, at a potato level, me playing

(01:10:59):
on a potato, as you can see withmy terrible internet seat.
It has felt Grier.

Alex (01:11:05):
I I, I love your answer.
'cause like, I like how you tooklike accountability.
Like maybe it's a me problem,whereas everyone, like everyone
else everywhere else is like,no, it's this game.
I am rank one in any otheruniverse.
You know what I mean?
I'm just joking.
Obviously I've personally feltit to be much more frustrating
and it's, it's one of thosethings where like, my, my pulse
on the community is such that,like, I, I do interact with, I

(01:11:27):
interact with competitiveplayers, but I interact with a
lot of casual players, a lot ofcasual players, and, and I love
'em.
And they're so important to ourecosystem.
They really are.
Whether you're free to play orotherwise, right.
You're so important to the game,so important to me.
And, um, when it comes rightdown to it, they are all
unanimously saying the samething in a very unified voice
where it's like breaking up hasfelt awful these last few

(01:11:49):
months.
So there's something that's beenchanged, there's no doubt about
it because I.
I can get when like, people arekind of frustrated about things
and like I, I get like the, youknow, the comment banter, but
this has been a very consistentthing I've been hearing over the
last two months and it, like, ithas this definite start.
So someone pushed a buttonsomewhere is my, is my take

(01:12:10):
someone definitely pushed abutton somewhere.
Yeah.
Although at the end of the day.
We all have a little bit ofaccountability.
We could all just make betterplays and stop throwing cubes.
But then we have the Philosocopter coming in with the last
question of the day.
Philoso copter is not evenasking a question.
It's more like a statement.
100% agree that the collectiontrack needs to be totally
overhauled.

(01:12:30):
It's more of a chore thanreward.
No, I don't need gold tickets.
1000 tokens or a hundred tokens,I should say, or a damned
avatar, floss copter.
I'm gonna just count you withone thing.
I think we do need the tokensout there, but we talked about
last week, Ryan, about how thecollection track seems to be a
relic of Marvel Snaps past.
And if you're going to increasethe number of cars being

(01:12:50):
released, why aren't weincreasing the rewards on the
collection track?
Like, why aren't we increasingthe number of tokens that we're
acquiring so we can actuallyacquire the damn cards being
released?
It seems like a relic that needsto be taken a look at, and it,
it seems like a forgotten partof Snap's ecosystem.

Ryan (01:13:06):
A hundred

Alex (01:13:06):
percent agree,

Ryan (01:13:07):
a

Alex (01:13:07):
hundred

Ryan (01:13:07):
percent agree.
If, uh.
If I were anointed the king ofPax and or the king of, uh,
marble Snap.
And, uh, it was like, all right,you get to make changes to the
game.
This is one of the first ones.
I do this in a draft mode andlike, and then new user welcome
bundles or something would belike the three big changes.
I hate the track.

(01:13:27):
It is a chore just to click thefrigging buttons.
Like it takes like two secondsper click to like, I gotta watch
the animation.
And then I, oh boy, I got 30credits.
Oh, I got another gold ticketfor a moment play.
Um, I've got over like 4,000 onmy track of unopened levels of

(01:13:48):
my track.
I don't even bother because ittakes so long and it's so unfun.
There's gotta be I do feel likethe game was redesigned.
It's like it's gameplay loop interms of like.
You play a game, you unlock yourboosters, you do your stats and
go through, and then you do yourtrack.
Like that is a product of bygoneera of this game.
This game has been re-engineeredin the background, but that

(01:14:09):
hasn't, and it does feel weird.
It doesn't feel fun.
I don't feel rewarded as aplayer.
I feel it's like there there're,uh, it feels like they're
wasting my time in a way.
So I would totally rework that.
I'd scrap it entirely and likestart all over again.
But that's, again, these are alleasier said than done things.
Like, I, I don't, I'm not a gamedesigner, but like, people come

(01:14:33):
to me with like, oh, you shoulddo this at the convention.
And I'm like, that's, we tookfrom a million reasons why
that's a dumb idea and how muchinfrastructure changes would be
required.
So I am, I recognize I'm in aprivileged position to just be
like, make new things for me.
But uh, it does feel like thatneeds some kind of attention for
sure.

Alex (01:14:53):
No, there's no doubt about it.
I can, I can only imagine thetype.
It's so funny, I just laughed athearing you say that.
It's like, you know, Hey Ryan,you know, it would be great at
Pax if you had Drake and, youknow, Kendrick Lamar do like a
rap battle.
Like Yeah, that would, thatwould be cool, wouldn't it?
Right.
But like, not feasible, right?
Not possible.
Although I gotta tell you, yeah,you, you've had like some
legitimate stars on the stages.

(01:15:14):
Like obviously, uh, like XavierWoods and stuff like that.
Like it, it's so like, anyways,I'm a huge fan of Pax and, uh,
I'm so appreciative ofeverything you've done, not only
for Marvel Snap behind thescenes, you're one of the
unspoken heroes behind thescenes of Marvel Snaps
community.
And uh, I wanted to take asecond to say thank you for
that, uh, because um, as ourcommunity kind of ages and you
know what, we're in our thirdyear of playing Marvel Snap.

(01:15:36):
Sometimes not all heroes wearcapes, and you're one of them.
So thank you so much for allthat you've done to not only
support you know, the, thecontent creator community and
myself, Camm, and, uh, you know,Husky and others that, uh, you
know, you've been so kind of,uh.
Helpful towards, but also ofcourse for Marvel Snap as a
whole with the card backs andall that you do behind the
scenes to try to give this, uh,the platform it needs to be the

(01:15:57):
best game it can be.

Ryan (01:15:59):
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Same to you, man.
Like I it's all out oflegitimately a place of love and
enjoyment for this game.
I'm not getting anything inreturn for all this stuff for, I
just really like the game.
I'm legitimately a fan of it,and I'm just, because I'm a fan
and because I do have access atmy, like, with Pax and
everything to be able to dostuff, I'm just like, Hey, it'd

(01:16:21):
be cool if we did this and thenI can try to make it happen.
But, uh, but no it is just, uh,it's a great game and I wanna
see it succeed.
I like, I like the game.
I like all the folks over therethat I've met.
I love the community around it.
This is, some games can getpretty toxic and the community
around this is.
By far, especially likecomparatively to other like game

(01:16:42):
communities.
Pretty supportive and prettycool.
So it's like, it's been great tosee.
And, uh, and you, you're a hugepillar of the community, so you
know, perhaps you as well.
Thanks for all the things youdo.

Alex (01:16:53):
Thank you.
And that, that means a lot tome.
Ryan, thank you so much.
And guys, I'm gonna have pennyarcades information down below.
Uh, you know, you guys have beendoing, you guys do lots of
streams, lots of, uh, varietycontent as well.
Uh, you also get to see a lot ofthe panels and stuff you guys
post to your main YouTubechannel, so that all will be
posted down below.
Uh, we do have Axxis coming up.
Uh, Ryan, do you wanna speak onbehalf of, uh, the Penny Arcade

(01:17:15):
or the Pax?
I always say Pan Arcade Expo.
PAX Unplugged is coming up.
You also have PAX Australia,which is like near immediately
coming.
Do you wanna talk about thosedates and, uh, yeah.
PAX Australia

Ryan (01:17:25):
is less than a month away.
The October 10th to 12th in, uh,Melbourne.
And then so if you're in, hey,anyone happens to be in
Australia, we'll be giving away.
Uh, the Pax card back, it is atevery PAX for the year.
So we gave it away in Boston, wegave it away in Seattle.
We'll be giving it away inAustralia and then we'll be
giving it away in Philadelphiaas well, which is Pax Unplugged.

(01:17:48):
And that's November 21st of the23rd.
It's the week beforeThanksgiving.
Um, that is our board game show,so that is like, if you like
Marvel Snap, you're probably acard game player.
You know, and you probably playother card games.
That is the show to go to forthat sort of stuff.
There's tons of card games andboard games and all analog games
there.

(01:18:08):
And it's a great show, but we'llbe giving away the Pax card back
there as well.
And then I'm sure likely after,uh, after the end of the year,
I'm sure there'll be ways toacquire our season two, uh, our
second card back.
And then hopefully we'll have anew one next year.
So.

Alex (01:18:22):
Yeah, for sure.
And, um, looking forward to thatfor sure.
And then, uh, again, we have PAXBoston, which is in the new year
as well, which is one of myabsolute favorites where I
learned how to play car games inthe first place.
But anyways, guys, thank you somuch for joining us today.
Both Ryan and I say thank youvery much for your support and
as I said, all the links will bein the description down below so
you guys can get all that PaxGoodness going.
Thank you so much guys, andwe'll see you on that next one.