No preamble today, let’s dive right into the updates!

• Loki
  • [Old] 4/5 - On Reveal: Transform your hand into cards from your opponent’s starting deck and give them -1 Cost.
  • [New] 3/5 - On Reveal: Replace your deck with your opponent's starting deck. Give those cards -1 Cost and draw a card.

It took a few shots to land Loki in the right spot, but the goal had been accomplished. However, as time has passed, our preference for using Loki as a buildaround for decks that generate extra cards has shifted. It's proven too stifling to cards like Snowguard and Agent Coulson, who can't really stand on their own anywhere, as well as future designs we've worked on internally.Given Loki's recent resurgence alongside Arishem, it felt like the right time to try capturing that fantasy without diminishing those other cards. We don't want to "banish Loki from Asgard" with this change, so we're erring stronger to avoid that. If we need to come back for a buff or nerf, or if this rework doesn't succeed for other reasons, we'll consider something else. 

• Leech
  • [Old] 5/5 - On Reveal: Remove the text from cards with On Reveal abilities in your opponent’s hand.
  • [New] 4/4 - On Reveal: Remove the text from 6-Cost cards in your opponent’s hand.

This has been a tricky card for us to land where we want it. The last change proved we had enough overlap from other effects to avoid leaning on Leech as an all-purpose answer. However, the function has primarily been a tool for letting decks brute force their strongest stuff through defenses, rather than answering otherwise overpowering strategies.We're going to try narrowing it further and targeting a more specific scope of threats. We're also going to aim weak, in case we're underestimating the effect, to give most honest folk a break from getting Leeched. 

• Doctor Octopus
  • [Old] 5/10 - On Reveal: Pull 4 cards from your opponent’s hand to their side of this location.
  • [New] 4/8 - On Reveal: Pull the lowest-Power card from your opponent’s hand to their side of this location.

The good Doctor had settled into a career as a niche player in the SNAP metagame for quite a while, until Arishem showed up. While Arishem is enabling more aggressive Ock plays, the true lesson has been that when Ock is seeing a lot of play . . . that can get fairly frustrating. Given we find ourselves in a spot where we have a card we kind of don't want people playing in volume, that makes it a solid candidate for a rework. Our goal here isn't specifically a nerf, but rather to continue capturing the fantasy of the card with an implementation that's more fun and will be a healthier addition to the metagame.Plus, 4/8 is a pretty great statline for creative reasons. 

• Widow's Kiss (White Widow)
  • [Old] 0/0 - Ongoing: This has -4 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.
  • [New] 0/0 - Ongoing: This has -3 Power. Disable this ability if your side of this location is full.

Enough time has passed for White Widow to see the breadth of the card's impact, and it's showing up more often than we aimed for, and in a wider variety of decks. The strength doesn't feel especially far off, so this small tweak down on the effect should help balance things out. 

• Blob
  • [Old] 6/0 - On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 15 or more Power.
  • [New] 6/0 - On Reveal: Merge cards from your deck into this until it gains 13 or more Power.

One of the winningest cards in Arishem decks has continued to be Blob. The specifics of that gameplay aren't very satisfying, because Blob tends to wind up fairly close to a 6/17 or better without a drawback in these decks. Our goal with Blob is to encourage some meaningful deckbuilding differences or charge a steeper price for the strength, so that's not working out. Turning the knob down will weaken Blob in Arishem while leaving some strength to build around in 12-card decks. 

• War Machine
  • [Old] 4/6 - On Reveal: Until the end of next turn, nothing can stop you from playing cards anywhere.
  • [Change] 4/6 -> 4/7

War Machine hasn't found a consistent home, indicating there's room to add extra Power. A larger contributor to the low play rate may be our revision to Professor X leaving players without enough incentive to find a slot for War Machine, but either way this buff carries fairly little risk. 

• Apocalypse
  • [Old] 6/6 - When you discard this, put it back with +4 Power.
  • [Change] 6/6 -> 6/8

We took some Power away from Apocalypse a while ago, when Discard had reached perhaps the peak of its all-time strength. Since then the metagame has continued to evolve, and Discard has slid backwards. This won't fully reverse the trend, but it's a solid step and we'd like to monitor the results before making additional updates. — That's all for this week. Until next time, happy snapping! 

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven’t updated your game yet, get the latest in the App Store!Alliances, assemble! Alliances will enhance the social experience, allowing players to create or join communities within the game while working together to complete Bounties and earn rewards. 

• Alliances have arrived!
  • Create or join an Alliance of up to 30 players and work together to complete Bounties and earn more rewards!
  • Work on up to three Bounties at once to complete while playing.
  • Earn points for your Alliance by winning Cubes and completing Bounties!
  • At the end of the week, earn both individual and Alliance-wide rewards.
  • Check out our Alliances blog[d3hyqhf8hhr6vv.cloudfront.net] to learn more

 

• Deadpool League
  • August 8th-10th is the global launch of our first Leagues event!
  • Leagues are limited-time events where you’ll be matched into groups of 30 similar players to compete on a short-term leaderboard for prizes.
  • Players will join a Standard League with no cost of entry. There will be no Premium League for this iteration of Deadpool League.
  • During the event, just play games as normal and your League Points will adjust based on your game outcomes.
  • More cubes means more Points! At the end of the League, everyone gets rewards… but, the top spots on the leaderboard will receive the best rewards!

 

• The FREE Credits offering in the Shop is increasing to 75 Credits per day in 25 Credit increments refreshing every 8 hours.

 

• Moon Knight has VFX and SFX to complement his updated ability. Spoiler alert.

 

• Uatu
  • [Old] 1/2 - At the start of the game, shows the right location to you.
  • [New] 1/2 - At the start of the game, shows unrevealed locations to you.

We were reluctant to limit Uatu's vision when we first changed the effect to work from the deck, but it felt needlessly risky to remove a lot of the tension and mystery from locations for players earning Uatu early on. However, we've grown comfortable with the idea and hope fans enjoy Watching the whole field on turn 1 in the future. 

• Shadow King
  • No text change; setting no longer considered raising or lowering Power.

The interaction of Luke Cage “stopping” Shadow King and various other corner cases which result in Shadow King adding negative or positive modifiers have proven confusing for players. We’ve decided to adjust Shadow King because this effect specifically feels like it should be “cleansing” modifiers, not adding more to counterbalance what’s already there.We’re keeping this distinct from Valkyrie because that effect does specifically add a modifier to other cards, and feels like fair game for Luke Cage to prevent it. 

• Moon Knight
  • [Old] 3/3 - On Reveal: Discard a card from each player’s hand.
  • [New] 3/3 - On Reveal: Discard a card with an even Cost from each player's hand.

Moon Knight's a great character, but has struggled to find a good home even when discard is popular. We've kept "improve Moon Knight" on the whiteboard for a while, and today we're crossing that off. We did debate redesigning the card, but we've also heard your feedback when we do that in a way that fundamentally changes the card for fans it already has, as we did with Adam Warlock. This tweak aims to make the card a more suitable pairing with Stature, one of the most popular ways to play Moon Knight already, as well as Swarm and Apocalypse. It may also make Moon Knight a useful threat against decks that rely on single 6-Cost threats, like Red Hulk. 

• Blink
  • [Old] 5/7 - On Reveal: Swap the last card you played with a higher-Cost card from your deck.
  • [New] 5/7 - On Reveal: Swap the last card you played with a card that costs more from your deck.

We've made two changes to Blink. The first is functional: we've adjusted the ability to check the cards in your deck based on what they currently cost, not their original Cost. This means that she'll see cards the same way that Jane Foster sees them. It's not an inconsistency that came up much in gameplay, but it didn't make sense that Jane and Blink could both grab a Negative Iron Man that's a 0/5. However, like all cards already do, Blink will still care about the original Cost of the card in play to determine the one from the deck. The second change is just how we're handling the card text, and is detailed more generally below:

Text Change: cost vs. CostWe currently use "Cost" as a shorthand within the game to identify the "printed Energy Cost" of a card, as opposed to whatever it might currently cost. For example, Silver Surfer buffs 3-Cost cards, but won't buff Mockingbird while there are three Squirrels out and will buff an Ironheart that's been flipped by Mister Negative.However, some of our text was using "Cost" in places where the card's mechanical function actually was paying attention to the modified cost. It didn't come up much, but it's the sort of thing we like to correct as we run into it. Perhaps the most prominent place this occurred was Jane Foster, where she was often used to grab cards that cost 0 thanks to a modifier even though her text said "Cost." Below, you'll find a list of the cards and locations impacted by this text adjustment. Again, this is not a functional change to any of these–they all work today the same way they worked yesterday, they just line up a little better to communicate how they see a card's Cost. 

• Yondu
  • [Old] 1/2 - On Reveal: Destroy the lowest-Cost card in your opponent's deck.
  • [New] 1/2 - On Reveal: Destroy the card that costs the least in your opponent's deck.

 

• Colleen Wing
  • [Old] 2/4 - On Reveal: Discard the lowest-cost card from your hand.
  • [New] 2/4 - On Reveal: Discard the card that costs the least from your hand.

 

• Black Bolt
  • [Old] 5/7 - On Reveal: Discard the lowest-cost card from your opponent's hand.
  • [New] 5/7 - On Reveal: Discard the card that costs the least from your opponent's hand.

 

• Lady Sif
  • [Old] 3/5 - On Reveal: Discard the highest-cost card from your hand.
  • [New] 3/5 - On Reveal: Discard the card that costs the most from your hand.

 

• White Queen
  • [Old] 4/6 - On Reveal: Copy the highest-Cost card in your opponent's hand into your hand.
  • [New] 4/6 - On Reveal: Copy the card that costs the most from your opponent's hand into your hand.

 

• Jane Foster
  • [Old] 5/9 - On Reveal: Draw all cards that Cost 0 from your deck.
  • [New] 5/9 - On Reveal: Draw all cards that cost 0 from your deck.

 

• Mirage
  • [Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: Copy the lowest-Cost card in your opponent's hand into your hand. Give it +2 Power.
  • [New] 2/2 - On Reveal: Copy the card that costs the least from your opponent's hand into your hand. Give it +2 Power.

Note: We are aware that our Moon Knight change uses the capitalized "Cost" in a way that's not consistent with the above–Moon Knight will be able to discard cards with a modified Cost, like copies of Swarm. This inconsistency was a result of the changes flying separately through localization, and we'll correct it in a future update. 

• Text Change: Throne Room
  • [Old] Card(s) here with the highest Power have their Power doubled.
  • [New] The highest-Power card(s) here have their Power doubled.

One of our excellent interns for the summer pointed out that the grammar on Throne Room was odd, so we fixed it. This is just a minor change for readability and has no functional impact. 

• Fixed an issue that was occasionally causing copies of Jean Grey to have their ability text disabled
• Cleaned up an interaction between Asteroid M and Quantum Tunnel that could result in moved cards snapping back to Quantum Tunnel after being swapped
• Castle Zemo
  • Playing Spider-Man on Castle Zemo no longer causes the location’s current power to display incorrectly
  • Cleaned up an interaction between Multiple Man, Iron Fist, Castle Zemo, and the displayed power of the location
  • Cleaned up an interaction between Deadpool, Nico Minoru, and Castle Zemo
  • Cleaned up an interaction between Doctor Octopus, Shang-Chi, and Castle Zemo
• Fixed an issue that would prevent a location’s winning power from being highlighted if it was swapped from Cancun
• Evolved Abomination’s cost is now restored upon Shadow King reverting reduced power cards back to their base
• Titania now properly swaps sides on Altar of Death when X-23 is played at the location
• Cleaned up an interaction between Juggernaut moving cards merged with Hulkbuster

• Fixed an issue with some cards that was causing them to appear blurry at higher rarity levels

• Blue Cosmic Border re-added to the shop
• Fixed an edge case that could result in two of the same avatars becoming available in the Cosmetic Shop
• Resolved an issue that could cause claimed inbox rewards to appear as if they’re unclaimed
• Adjusted the timer of Vibranium Offers to no longer be pushed off-screen on some devices
• Clicking on a different album right as an Album Completion animation plays no longer plays the wrong animation
• Fixed an issue with Main Menu UI elements appearing during the transition sequence post-match
• English characters displayed while the client is set to Japanese should no longer display in an incorrect, weird font style
• Fixed an issue where Conquest and Friendly Battle health bars were visible in a Ranked match
• In cases where a player disconnects or is disconnected from a match, it no longer appears as if they can change their deck prior to reconnecting to the match