Kitty Pryde is finally coming back to Marvel Snap, but the May 16 update also kills one of the most effective decks in the meta.

When Kitty Pryde was first introduced, she was so overpowered that the developers had to remove the card just two days later.

It’s taken a while, but the Marvel Snap developers seem to have finally figured out a way to make the card viable without dominating the game.

Let’s take a look at how Kitty Pryde will look when she returns to Marvel Snap, as well as all the buffs and nerfs in the May 16 update.

Kitty Pryde returns

After some tweaking, Kitty Pryde is back in Marvel Snap with a new ability… sort of. Previously, Kitty would get +2 power whenever she returned to the player’s hand. Now, she still gets the +2 power when she returns to the player’s hand, but she returns at the beginning of each turn.

This allows for more opportunities for players to counter or destroy Kitty if they predict where she’ll be played.

Wave nerfs

Doomwave and Deathwave decks have been extremely strong throughout the history of Marvel Snap, so it was inevitable that she would get some changes.

Namely, Wave’s effect will now last through the end of the turn after she is played, rather than just applying when she’s played. This means that cards like She-Hulk and Death will also cost 4 energy when Wave has been played, severely limiting her synergy with some of those cards that can have their cost reduced.

Marvel Snap May 16 patch notes update

Here are all the changes that have come to Marvel Snap in the May 16 update.

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

Kitty Pryde Returns

• Kitty Pryde returns to MARVEL SNAP with a brand new ability. We will grant Kitty Pryde base card to ALL players. For new accounts created after today’s patch, Kitty Pryde will be available in Series 5.

New Feature: Deck Cosmetics Customization

• Cosmetic customizations by deck (card back, title, avatar): Avatars and Titles can now be applied to each deck separately!
• Please Note: The first time you login this patch, your active deck will be changed to the first deck in your list. We apologize for this inconvenience!

Seasonal Series Drop: Some cards have dropped down to a lower series!

Cards dropping from Series 5 to Series 4:

• Master Mold
• Negasonic
• Nimrod

Series 4 to 3:

• Sentry
• Silver Surfer
• Dazzler
• Shadow King
• Sauron
• Ghost

Cards staying in Series 4:

• Darkhawk
• Knull

GENERAL UPDATES

Ranked Mode

• The number of Cubes required to Rank Up have decreased from 10 Cubes to 7 Cubes.
• The number of Bonus Ranks gained when Tiering up has been reduced from 5 Ranks to 3 Ranks. (Example: When ranking up from rank 29, a player will go to Rank 33 instead of Rank 35.)

Developer Note: We’re continuing to make adjustments to Ranked Mode that will improve the overall experience for players. The changes coming with this patch feature some adjustments to the matchmaking algorithm and updates to the number of Cubes/Ranks while progressing through the season. There are more changes planned for future patches!

When purchasing an item from the shop, you must now Press and Hold the button to confirm your purchase. This should help reduce/remove any accidental purchases!

Added Series 1 and Series 2 labels to cards from those series

AUDIO

Voice Over Updates

• Indonesian VO mixed & mastered
• Thanos VO added for Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese & Korean

General Updates

• Fixed bug which would over trigger card flare SFX in collection screen and in-game

BALANCE UPDATES

This is a light week relative to the excitement of recent patches. The metagame as April ended featured a diverse metagame with healthy win rates and cube gain rates, and only a couple small popularity outliers. We’ll have more news for you soon on the future of our OTA balance patches, but today is mostly just a couple card reworks.

CARD UPDATES

Kitty Pryde – Released with new design!

• [Old] 1/0 – You can return this to your hand to gain +2 Power.
• [New] 1/0 – When this returns to your hand, +2 Power. Returns at the start of each turn.

Developer Comment: As we previously announced, Kitty Pryde will be returning to the game this week with her new ability. She’ll be Series 5 and awarded to all active accounts today.

Crystal

• [Old] 4/4 – On Reveal: If this is at the middle location, shuffle your hand into your deck and draw 3 cards.
• [New] 4/4 – On Reveal: Each player draws a card.

Developer Comment: Crystal has been one of a handful of cards seeing incredibly low play and win rates for quite some time now, and an obvious buff candidate. We debated maintaining the direction of the current effect by removing the middle restriction, increasing the cards drawn, etc. But the tricky thing is that we don’t want an effect like Crystal’s to be strong. SNAP decks are only 12 cards and we don’t want those cards to play out the same every time, so we’re very careful about letting players draw cards. This rework aimed to make a simple, appropriate Crystal that could be fun alongside a variety of cards.

Wave

• [Old] 3/3 – On Reveal: Next turn, cards in both players’ hands cost 4.
• [New] 3/3 – On Reveal: All cards cost 4 until the end of next turn.

Developer Comment: Wave’s cost reduction occurs after other effects that reduce card costs. In addition to a text update that clarifies when Wave’s effect begins, we’ve also made a rather large adjustment “under the hood.” Wave will now begin to apply after effects that reduce card costs, rather than before. That means She-Hulk, Death, etc. will always cost 4 while Wave is in effect. We don’t take lightly that this change kills a few decks, but Wave has been far too constraining on our ability to use cost reduction as a synergy reward in future designs. Leaning on Wave is just always better than dedicating your deck to the actual synergy–we’ve seen that with Death since both cards went live, and we’ll continue seeing it without this action.

Death

• [Old] 9/12 – Costs 1 less for each card destroyed this game.
• [New] 8/12 – Costs 1 less for each card destroyed this game.

Developer Comment: As Death’s current performance is essentially dependent on Wave and Galactus, we wanted to improve her playability in other decks now that the interaction with Wave has changed. This may not be enough, and if we see Death take a huge dive we’ll come back and look at how these values can be adjusted further to ensure Death remains a meaningful card for dedicated Destroy decks.

White Queen (Text-only change)

• [Old text] 4/6 – On Reveal: Draw a copy of the highest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand.
• [New text] 4/6 – On Reveal: Copy the highest-Cost card in your opponent’s hand into your hand.

Developer Comment: This is just a text revision to resolve some ongoing confusion about what White Queen exactly does and how it interacts with cards like Widow’s Bite. In the future, we may pursue establishing some kind of shorthand for copying a card into your hand, but for now we’re just going with the clearest expression of the card’s function.

Check out more of our Marvel Snap coverage here, as well as some guides to help you collect some cubes!

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