‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all ’round the block, everybody was snapping after playing Psylocke. Old Zabu was sitting by a fire so fine, to see on Turn 3 one DOOM 2099! The opponent was sweating as the Doombots did fall, as one card by one card, each one powered all. On the final turn 6, there was naught to be done, so he threw his hands up and decided to run. We click “Play” again and press the attack, to get the data we need for another Snap Back!
That’s right, we’re busting out the bad poetry for this edition. Apart from what is easily the most hyped card release this month, there’s also some news on card acquisition updates that couldn’t have come a moment too soon. But will they be enough to ease an angry playerbase? And will Doom 2099 be the meta killer that everyone expects? All this and more in this week’s edition of the Snap Back!
Doom 2099 Brings the Bots for Big Beatings
I’ve said before that I’m not interested in burying the lede, so I’ll be honest right from the top – Doom 2099 is definitely a very good card. You’re gonna the words “Strong Recommendation!” in bold at the end of this section. If that’s the only thing you’re coming to these articles to see, you’re good to go, thanks for your time, I’ll see you next week.
It is simply hard to deny the level of power that Doom 2099 brings to the game, especially when cheated out early with cards like Psylocke or Zabu. As expected, his ‘play only one card’ caveat works on the turn he’s played, meaning you can pretty easily get 3-4 Doombot 2099’s into play who will all buff each other, as well as your turn 6 original Doctor Doom for some very impressive point totals across all three lanes. I was regularly putting 30+ points in two lanes and around 20-ish in a third, and the Doombots being able to go into unplayable locations only further proves how useful a card this can be.
That said, it’s far from unbeatable. The random nature of Doombot drops lends themselves to stacking in a single lane, rendering them highly susceptible to the newly-buffed Enchantress. Every Doombot that gets its Ongoing text wiped not only loses its own power, but a point across every other Doom and Doombot not in that lane too, severely dropping the total score across the board. We’re also seeing a big rise in Clog-type lists, where players are throwing Hoods, Rocks, and Goblins into their opponent’s side of the board to limit just how many Doombots they can actually have around in a game.
It’s also a little bit boring. If you like winning games and that’s it, then you’ll love it! But if you enjoy thinking about plays and playing off your opponent’s choices, reading and reacting to their plays before they make them, this isn’t going to be a card that excites you. You pretty much just play Doom 2099 and then play your strongest single card every turn for the rest of the game and watch the number go up. It’s good enough to be worth it, probably, but it’s absolutely something to consider when new card resources don’t come easy.
Snap Back Verdict: Strong Recommendation!
January Brings Band-Aid to Card Acquisition Woes
Last Thursday, Second Dinner community manager Griffin took to the official Discord to share some news about incoming changes to the game meant to alleviate concerns players have about long-term card acquisition in Marvel SNAP. In the post, Griffin identifies a series of pain points that the team has found to be the major issues players seem to have, and notes that the kind of sweeping changes necessary to address them properly will take time.
In the meantime, though, Second Dinner plans on making some changes in the upcoming January patch that should alleviate at least some issues for players while they work on more permanent adjustments. There are two major updates, one focusing on newer players with the other on the more long-term players who are closer to being collection complete. First, the number of Series 3 cards available in the golden Collector’s Caches will be doubled, from 2 to a guaranteed 4 out of every 9 boxes. This will double an already consistent collection increase to get players up to speed even faster than before. One of the major troubles with being an early-stage player is the wide sea of Series 3 cards and the inability to easily get the cards you want when you want them. Now, between the free Series 3 card of your choice every season and the increased number of cards players will pull every week, the vast majority of playable cards will be available to the vast majority of players much more easily and allow for much more flexibility in deck building.
For those who have already completed their Series 3 collection and most of the rest of the cards too, Second Dinner is also increasing the number of tokens rewarded from hitting a duplicate card in the Spotlight Caches from 1000 to 2000. This particular cache option has been a sore spot for players since the Spotlight Caches were first released, and the duplicate would instead grant a random variant. The 1000 token change was an upgrade, but the community still often found it lacking that instead of getting a new card from that slot, they would only get one-sixth of the resources it takes to get a new card. Now, that journey to getting a new card explicitly out of resources from this slot has been halved. A 1000 token increase is honestly huge, and something that will go a long way to help out those unlucky players who can’t help but hit this “bad” option every week.
Looking Ahead
Once again, there’s not too much of note to look ahead to. High Voltage will be returning on the 28th, and with it, the new card, Lasher. Second Dinner has noted that Lasher will not be immediately available in the Token Shop after the event ends due to some unforeseen technical difficulties; however, High Voltage was an incredibly easy event to complete last time around, and I expect it will be much the same here. I believe it was something like only 60% of the thrice-daily updated missions are required to receive every point needed to complete the reward track, and it did not appear that the point values changed all that much this time around.
Next week’s card release is going to be Bruce Banner, prelude to the Hulk. I’m not expecting this one to make the kind of splash that Doom 2099 has, both in my own estimation of its power and in the equally-important general consensus of the content creation sphere. That said, he could pull an Immortal Hulk and surprise us all by being the best Hulk-related card we’ve seen in a while! (Seriously, read Immortal Hulk.) What do you think? Will Bruce Banner Hulk out hard enough to score spots in the top decks? Will High Voltage be the jolt the game needs to bring its missing players home? Come back to find out our thoughts and more in next week’s edition of the Snap Back!
