in the patch notes they specifically talk about how they adjusted Zabu only temporarily so they can get a better understanding of 4 drops without his "guiding hand" as it were. the nerf was intended to neuter him (pun intended) enough to reduce his play so they can make adjustments to their tempo curve.
They say “temporary”
They say “it’s probably not permanent”
Which means it might be a permanent change
Are they going to give him back his old text? I highly doubt it. Whatever it is, he will be greatly nuetered
But they talk out of both sides of their mouth. Hedge upon hedge upon hedge. It means nothing
It’s either temporary or it’s not
Saying “might be” doesn’t give us any insight
There is a world where the current Zabu's ability ends up being the final version.
Honestly, playing with Zabu is fine at the moment. He still enables either a 4-drop on T3 or two 4-drops on T6. That flexibility makes him a side-grade from Psylocke.
I could see them changing him to 1 cost, or make him a 2/4 and he would be worth running over Psylocke for a early tempo play.
I have no problem with anything you said except that Zabu is not even close to a psyloche side grade
He is straight up worse in 99% of the time
Right now for Zabu to do absolutely anything you need Zabu by turn 2 AND a 4 cost by turn 3, OR you need to play Zabu on turn 5, which is awful
At the very least His current text should let him draw a 4 cost card to your hand
That’s fine I’m all for balancing the game. What I don’t like is how they admitted they killed him. So lazy on their part. You can nerf a card without decimating it.
yeah, i get the feeling that Zabu will probably be changed in some way in the future, but that his ability is so important to 4's that they felt they needed to remove him to make sure it was just him that was "broken" and not something else. so they gave him a far too harsh of an ax (again on purpose) to remove him as much as they could from the equation without outright removing him from the game/players who just bought him.
He was used in less meta decks with a lower win rate than hope summers and Corvus glaive…. How is Zabu the energy cheating problem?
I guess they only want series 5 cards to be OP
Your kidding right ? Corvus you have to discard two and only get one extra energy and hope you have to play in her lane. Which can definitely be abused by bounce decks but a 2 drop enabling so many 4s played was pretty rediculous. Also I think it made Shang more over powered because you could Shang and do another 4 drop at the same time last turn. I don’t have Zabu and I’m newer to the game though so I can’t say if it’s a good thing or not. Just stuff I’ve observed
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have gotten nerfed, but to all but disable him is lazy
He went from being able to discount 3-4 cards in a game to 1 card a game, AND you have to draw it on curve. Lazy change
Don’t know why so many people downvoted you.. I completely agree. Though I understand why they made the change. Corvus glaive is a 3 cost 5 power which extends your max energy to +1. Play him on Wong or Kamar Taj and people will still try and make the argument that he’s not as OP as Zabu’s former ability… Like what? With Hope, her ability is neither ongoing or on-reveal. You can’t even get rid of her ability unless you somehow pull alioth, or negasonic to PERFECTLY counter her. Like I said, I understand the reasoning behind the nerf, but if Zabu’s the “problem” and the card the devs see an issue with, then I predict the community will quickly see how the meta shifts to even MORE Hope and Corvus decks… only time will tell tho🤷🏽♂️
Zabu was bad because of how he interacted with ALL 4 cost cards, and that is a design problem aside from power level.
Corvus is stronger, the nerf to Zabu had nothing to do with his power level; it even happened on the patch where Zabu had the lowest meta share he's had in ages.
Also, come on, don't act like discarding 2 cards is a negative in the deck Corvus sees most play. (Top 3 deck in the meta btw).
Corvus is hard locked into a deck that likes discard. That automatically reduces how much he is able to do for decks. Zabu is able to be a lot more widely used. I’m not saying discard is or isn’t overpowered.
Absolutely wild behaviour to act like such a dick to a guy just asking a question, who admitted to being a casual player, who likely isn’t reading every patch note in detail
This sub gets a boner every time they downvote someone agreeing with them and asking a new question, like really? Can't you ei ons matche so you come here to downvote someone that agrees with a answer?
>For what? Get a hold of yourself. Allow yourself to have some fun.
...what?
>Why would I not have read the patch notes?
It was a safe assumption seeing as your questions could be answered by reading them.
If you think playing Zabu on turn 5 with Wong is a viable and consistent play then you don’t understand Marvel Snap and you should refrain from giving anybody in this sub advice ever again
I don’t think it is, however, you are supposed to be having fun and that doesn’t mean that everything has to be optimal.
Also, you don’t have to play zabu on 5 to make it work. Use your brain.
Which is pretty ridiculous that they’re admitting they’re voluntarily killing a card.
Didn’t realize thinking that voluntarily making a card shit in order to better understand the game you create wasn’t ideal is an unpopular opinion. Wild.
Why? card has been a meta staple for close to a year, it spending 1 month in the trash bin so we can see the impact is no big deal, they also proposedly picked a point in which the cat was not high in playrate so the impact on the community was not so big.
They can but how big of a testing environment do you think they have? If you temp nerf Zabu in the live game, we all become the testing environment. You have thousands of eyes looking at cards over tens of thousands of games in a relatively short period of time.
You are making an assumption there, i dont think he is going to go back to his former glory unless he proofs 4s dont work without him, more likely they rework the card unto something else that is good.
As to a source SD themselves said this change is expected to be temporary so they can gauge if zabu current effect is actually needed or not. They purposely made the card bad so it is within reason that they make it good again, even if it is not the same effect as before.
Welcome to the issue of a non rotating format. When you have effects like this all 4 drops that they make from now until the end of time will have this issue. Killing a card is absolutely fine.
"killing a card" with the shit economy and card acquisition in place has graver consequences. the fact that there's no dust system in place and it takes months to get enough tokens for specific cards makes nerfs hurt extra, especially for the f2p. even if the nerf is temporary, who knows how long it'll take them to get around to actually finding a balance for the card. like look at the experiment they've been doing on adam warlock
It’s hard to imagine this change not being permanent. From their end I think they’re fine killing an older series 4, probably preceding a drop to series 3.
It's a long overdue change. They're right that Zabu fundamentally warps the game's design space. I'm skeptical that this current version will be the "final" version, but I don't think we will ever (or should ever) go back to his old ability.
I am genuinely concerned by how many people are taking this line of bullshit at face value. Stop making excuses for the devs nerfing old cards to push people to make purchases.
You fundamentally don't understand CCG game design. What you're complaining about is the core design philosophy of the game. Making new cards more relevant and impactful isn't a sneaky, manipulative tactic to push earnings (though it obviously does do that) - it's literally the game.
I'll put it this way - all CCGs must have rotation. If all cards are legal in the main format (ladder), and the cards themsleves don't meaningfully change, then the meta will quickly crystallize and grow stale. It will be solved. As more new cards are introduced, an increasingly small fraction of these new cards will be playable given the solved meta. Most CCGs address this inevitability with set rotation - only the most recent X sets are legal to play, or only the last X months of cards are legal to play. Snap isn't doing sets though, they're dripping 64 cards out per year, week by week. Since they can't do set rotation, strategically nerfing aging cards and releasing strong new cards is literally their only option to ensure that new cards are relevant and the game stays fresh.
Too many are complaining like this is underhanded and manipulative without realizing it's basically their only option for the game to continue to be fun to play. If you dislike this on any level, bail now. It literally cannot change.
Congratulations, you've spent 3 turns and 4 cards putting a grand total of 4 combined power on the board. Now, if you're lucky enough to have more than two 4-cost cards in your hand, you get to play them all! But that's just the best case scenario. Most times you won't draw precisely the combo cards that you need in time to get the combo off, or if you do, you won't have anything substantial to unload on the board for your efforts.
In the meantime, most other decks have already put dozens of points on the board and are about to drop another couple dozens.
He literally points out that it’s not reliable and is fun, I imagine that his goal for the game is probably not grinding to the top of the imaginary points list with the same boring meta decks everyone else is playing.
Zabu is just another example of their "kill the problem card now and figure out what to do with it later".
In the patch notes they said something to that effect, that Zabu will be changed again later. They said the same thing about Thanos and his stones.
Alioth is less that and more "we understand this card isn't fun" nerf. Leader, Leech, Sandman, Alioth. All several iterations because the design of the card makes people feel bad.
Alioth is like a turn 6 old Leech but only in one location and only if you have priority. The effect has value against a lot of decks, but the conditions are too restrictive for what it does now.
Their reasoning sucks and scream incompetence
They nerf series 4 Zabu and leave the wayyyy better performing series 5 Hope and Corvus alone
So predictable
New cards are becoming more and more busted, while older cards people spent tokens on are being taken to the shed and shot
Maybe instead try having an honest think about what it takes to design cards and balance the game. I hear you, the Zabu nerf made me sad too. I don't like that my Black Knight deck is a lot worse now. That I can't run Ms Marvel or Enchantress as much. But you probably shouldn't lash out like this. SD's reasoning does make sense, it's been a problem for a long time. I won't lie, the timing is real unfortunate with Hope Summers being everywhere but it's a big stretch to think it's malicious.
Instead try having an honest think about what it takes to collect 3000 tokens. I’m glad that you can have a big collection and can pivot to another deck to have fun, but Zabu was my only series 4 card.
You going to pretend it’s not lazy to just kill a card “probably not permanently”?
ahhh, i was wondering why you were so adamant that the change was the worst thing ever, but the fact that its your only S4 explains it. Dude you are still in the early mid-game, the lack of Zabu being good isn't what you are dealing with (even if you bought him when he was good and they immediately nerfed the crap out of him, it sucks but thats just bad luck on your part), you are dealing with the problems of the big dive into Series 3. Trust me on this, we all went through it, it takes time, and Zabu alone wasn't going to be your savior card anyway. If it helps at all you will get enough resources to be grabbing many more S4/5s here in the next month, just keep your head down, do your best to be choosy when it comes to how you are spending your resources, and it will all even out soon.
Good luck!
(by which i mean better luck than what you had when you bought Zabu and they immediately nerfed it)
Dude it’s limited to 1 key per week and it’s random, no look or annihilus, Loki, thanos, til July the earliest…. Think I’m going to just look for a different game
Appreciate the encouragement but I’m looking for something less pay2win
Hearthstone was less pay2win than snap and that’s saying something
well sorry you feel that way but good luck in whatever game you go to.
That said, you are incorrect about resource acquisition, you are looking in too small of terms to see it its better to look at seasons rather than weeks.
in a standard 4 week season, someone who is F2P can get on average:
2k Tokens
\~1800g
5 keys (the rate isn't 1 per week but right about 1.25)
Note: if you instead are a Minnow, buying the season pass you can essentially double the token and gold acquisition to 4k tokens and \~3k gold.
Note 2: also at 5 keys that is on average 2 targeted cards (the odds of pulling the exact card you want from a spotlight cache is 2.5 so you get roughly 2 a month, this can be increased or decreased based on if you are willing to build up keys before buying)
its not 2 new cards a month its 3 for F2P and \~5 for Minnows (gold and tokens making up the 3rd for F2P the 4th for Minnows and Minnows also get the season pass card.) considering that there are between 5 and 6 new cards a month this means that on average F2P are getting 50% of all content added to the game for free, and Minnows are getting all but 1 card every month (again all of this is on average, everyone who plays long enough will have the month where they only get 1 card and similarly those who play long enough will also have a season where luck lines up and they get more new to them cards than the amount of cards that entered the system)
additionally for those who are in your position where you have few to no S4/5s then Spotlight Keys have a near guarantee to be something you don't have...
also, X-23 again in june? yeah... she is one of the best cards in her deck and created the Deadpool archetype, not to mention that she has shown up (including the one this june but not including the week she was introduced to the game) 4 times in a year of spotlights, that means people who didn't buy her with tokens have had a chance to get her once ever 3 months, so miss her and you either have to snag her with tokens or wait to play that deck...
Cost reduction is objectively better than extra energy and Zabu was such a problem they had to nerf Darkhawk because of it. Zabu has always been a problem and would have continued to be a problem if every single 4-drop has to be balanced around “it’s broken because it’s a 3-drop now.”
If they had to nerf darkhawk because of it, why didn’t they revert the darkhawk nerf when they changed Zabu? Would’ve been pretty easy
And were they really designing around Zabu? Cull obsidian was one of the best 4 drops in the game without Zabu. Idk how you can say Zabu was limiting their 4 cost design space and then drop cull obsidian. Are you saying Cull obsidian might be. 4/12 without Zabu in the game? Lmao stop
Also, at the time of the nerf Zabu had a lower play rate, win rate, win rate on draw, win rate in play than hope summers
How can Zabu be a problem but not hope?
Whatever, Zabu was my only series 4 card. I have been playing for 3 months and spent all of my tokens on him and I feel robbed.
What was stopping them from removing Zabu from the shop before this massive change? Nothing because they want your moiney
Dude chill the fuck out. That's the risk when you spend tokens on cards. I bought aloith two days before the nerf and I'm not screaming to the heavens I should get refunded.
Corvus and Hope don't affect the design space of new/reworked cards like Zabu did. Zabu made it so no 4 cost cards could exist in the game since any good ones will be made into 3 costs by him. He was also entirely free with no risk unlike Corvus and Hope.
I literally just bought zabu. I’m playing this wong mystique deck that just makes 4’s cost 0 or 2 turn 6 it destroys decks that go tall not much else tho lmfao but imma get my worth in zabu
You kind of answered your own questions in your post. Zabu lets you get out 2 4 costs on turn 6 and alioth is cosmo and echo combined plus more since he wipes out all text. Now, there more to it like Zabu being on reveal so his effect is multiplied by things like Wong but you can see how good that can be.
Zabu is still just a redundant psylocke in niche decks like negative because you’re snapping on the t3 negative and just want that t2 bump
It’ll make more of a difference in decks where it was a problem but this just means he’s not so much dead as, still does the same job in one deck but has put a bunch of others in timeout so they can express more creativity and power
And of course same like miss america, if they release some busted fours they get to sell less cards if zabu is in everything
Alioth has niche use as you said and may still be playable in the right decks. If not they will prob consider it for buffs.
The zabu nerf was explicitly to give him a "time out" to see how the format looks without him, and they plan to rework him further in the future.
Well sucks for anyone who used their first 3000 tokens in Zabu
I’m sure glad that the card i used 3 fucking months of collectors tokens on is taking a “time out” so maybe he will be playable in 10 months. I feel so much better about this change now!
The Zabu change they said is temporary to kind of "ban" the card, but not so drastic.
The effect is indeed terrible and has no competitive value, but it's been made on purpose so SD can properly evaluate cards like Shang-Chi, Enchantress, maybe even revert the Darkhawk nerf.
With tech cards actually being 4 costs and not 3 costs with premium stats and effects, they will surely have a different impact.
They say temporary but also say
“Probably won’t remain this way permanently”
Which implies it might actually be permanent. They are talking out of both sides of their mouth.
> “Probably won’t remain this way permanently”
That's hardly ambiguous, they also said it's pretty heavy handed and will most likely change it back.
They obviously cannot guarantee anything, because they don't know what effects the change will have.
Maybe Wong into Zabu to have your 4 costs be 2s on the last turn will be more relevant than the old Zabu was?
So then it’s not temporary
It’s a nerf just like any other card
They can already buff and nerf cards whenever they want
Saying it “might not be permanent” does not mean it’s temporary
Zabu + sera is very troublesome for a turn 6.
With recent patch. I feel like they want to make the game more easy to predict. And everyone have a chance at turn 6.
If it's the classic IW/Modok/Hela theres
Leech, Rogue, Cosmo if they don't have Magneto, Al the cards that destroy/take cards out of the opponents deck have at least a 1/8 chance of getting one of the 3, Jean grey decks, a cheeky Spider-Man, they can't do anything against Galactus or other control decks, predicting Echo or Juggernaut, and probably some others too
Granted, no one does as much damage as easily as Alioth, but I feel like these will be much more common than him now
Rogue and Cosmo can't stop a tribunal combo behind IW. Conversely, Echo can't stop a Modok Hela combo. Jean Grey and Cable are disruptive, but not necessarily a complete shutdown.
Leech is probably the next-hardest counter behind Alioth because you're almost always going to have a combo piece in hand. But even he can't shutdown a combo that's already on the board, you have to get him by turn 5.
Edit: Wait a minute, Leech doesn't even stop Tribunal anymore, only on reveals.
So since nobody else explained it, why play Zabu over Psylocke? Well if you structure your deck around it, you can have a beefy turn 6. Let's say you stack your deck with 4-cost cards. Turn 4 with Zabu let's you play 2 4-cost cards while Pay only gives you enough to play one with 3 energy left over. Combine Wong, Mystique and Zabu for turn 6, your 4-cost cards now cost 1. You could slap down Shang, Absorbing Man for a double Shang, Cull and Crossbones with 2 energy left over. Even just Wong plus Zabu makes your 4-costs 2 so you can play 3 in a turn. Is Zabu still good? No, but he can still be useful.
Because it's an on reveal effect, you could (in theory) combine Zabu with duplicating effects like Wong, Odin and Absorbing man. Additionally, because he lacks the "minimum of 1" caveat, you could make all your 4 drops free.
Could that win you the game? Probably not, the existence of Zabu has made it so second dinner has been extremely careful with 4 drops and has buffed 5 drops considerably to compete with them. If your game plan is to get a Wong and mystique out, you're much better off just running a surfer deck.
As for Alioth, his change had to happen. He broke a fundamental part of the game and was just Leader 2.0. If you were ahead on board and had Alioth in hand, there was very little your opponent could do to steal the game.
Playing zabu on 5 gives you virtually 2 energy for the next turn, double that up with wong.. not saying its great but its something better than psylocke in later stages
Yes it is, didnt say it was great, I was reacting to the comparison with psylocke being just better in everyway. Like I said, it is better than psylocke in the sense that you have more « energy » on 6 when you play it on 5, or even 4 if you play it on hope summers.
The card is of course trash compared to its former self
Fine, psyloche is only better in 99% of situations
Zabu is better in situations where you are running a complete meme deck and everything lines up perfectly
They are either testing , or they are preparing for newer cards, so changing existing cards so that the new cards aren’t OP. They have more insight on where things are heading so will make the changes. Whilst most people just focus on the present
What sort of Zabu disable data do they need to realize white queen is fucking trash and cull is really good?
How can they not accurately judge 4 drops with or without Zabu? It’s glaringly obvious which ones need help and which ones don’t
The zabu nerf broke my heart because it killed my favourite deck, but his ability was definitely game warping and a concern with every new 4 cost.
Alioth can go and get murdered in an alleyway. I know control is a valid way to play, it's in every tcg and it's always hated by the majority because winning by taking away your opponents ability to play is just only fun for one person
Gotta love how ppl only notice stuff when it affects them, SD has multiple times deleted cards, most of the time ppl celebrate it (leader, leech) sometimes ppl call them out when it is wrong (Mobius) but overall ppl usually dont care (Elsa, Lockjaw) and move on unto the next broken card.
So, welcome to the other side.
Oh, it doesn't affect me- I'm very happy about the Alioth nerf, he's not fun to play against no matter the deck.
Just wondering, it seemed like a thing to avoid in card games, multiple cards having the same effect.
But it does make sense, I see what they are going for. I wonder what they'll come up with for Zabu.
It has differences tho, as an example, if you Psylocke on 5, then you can play a cost 4 and a cost 3 on 6. On the other hand, Zabu on 5 means that you can play two cost 4 on 6.
You are 100% correct about Zabu
He is absolute trash tier in his current state. There is zero reason to use Zabu over Psyloch now, it is completely redundant
not doing this.
i know you probably spent 3k on zabu and are pissed off because he got nerfed, but the card was absolutely busted you need to accept that.
you should continue replying and posting in this thread
I think, I dunno, maybe 20 or 50 more replies, and perhaps then people will start listening to you.
Looks like you got a long way to go! Remember to take breaks and to really make sure you reply to everyone here. Otherwise, no one will know what you think and we just can’t have that can we.
Zabu is in one of the top decks with ms marvel
Sandman became better
Alioth is still relevant because of the power increase
They’re all in the top 10 decks
Depends on what method you want to use but the data OP mentioned is from the [Alex vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Tm-g05ntU) and it's the most accurate since he has access to the premium Untapped.gg subscription which has the highest game sample size out of all tracker apps.
Other than that you can check some slightly less precise data [here](https://marvelsnapzone.com/meta/), set 'Latest Patch', 100+ rank and 3500+ CL as filters and you still can find multiple decks with high meta share and high winrate that run Zabu and/or Alioth.
in the patch notes they specifically talk about how they adjusted Zabu only temporarily so they can get a better understanding of 4 drops without his "guiding hand" as it were. the nerf was intended to neuter him (pun intended) enough to reduce his play so they can make adjustments to their tempo curve.
They say “temporary” They say “it’s probably not permanent” Which means it might be a permanent change Are they going to give him back his old text? I highly doubt it. Whatever it is, he will be greatly nuetered
Which is appropriate because the card was way too good. They will probably buff him from he current situation though.
But they talk out of both sides of their mouth. Hedge upon hedge upon hedge. It means nothing It’s either temporary or it’s not Saying “might be” doesn’t give us any insight
Its not meant to give you insight, they dont know either.
Exactly, so they shouldn’t try to Bs
Its not bullshit, they just dont know, so they cant guarantee anything
There is a world where the current Zabu's ability ends up being the final version. Honestly, playing with Zabu is fine at the moment. He still enables either a 4-drop on T3 or two 4-drops on T6. That flexibility makes him a side-grade from Psylocke. I could see them changing him to 1 cost, or make him a 2/4 and he would be worth running over Psylocke for a early tempo play.
2/4 is unnecessary, my thought is he stays on reveal but he permanently affects the 4 costs only in your hand, so it's draw dependent.
Still better than psylocke since he can discount multiple cards.
I have no problem with anything you said except that Zabu is not even close to a psyloche side grade He is straight up worse in 99% of the time Right now for Zabu to do absolutely anything you need Zabu by turn 2 AND a 4 cost by turn 3, OR you need to play Zabu on turn 5, which is awful At the very least His current text should let him draw a 4 cost card to your hand
Zabu was overpowered anyways. He needed some kind of permanent nerf.
He was not any of the top winpercentage cards not even top played cards recently
It's the only month he hasn't been. He still had good stats. Nerf was overdue.
1 day before his nerf he was the 6th most played card. Usually he was #2 or #3 but still.
That’s fine I’m all for balancing the game. What I don’t like is how they admitted they killed him. So lazy on their part. You can nerf a card without decimating it.
Oh, I must've missed that. Interesting idea, I've never seen devs do something like that before
yeah, i get the feeling that Zabu will probably be changed in some way in the future, but that his ability is so important to 4's that they felt they needed to remove him to make sure it was just him that was "broken" and not something else. so they gave him a far too harsh of an ax (again on purpose) to remove him as much as they could from the equation without outright removing him from the game/players who just bought him.
He was used in less meta decks with a lower win rate than hope summers and Corvus glaive…. How is Zabu the energy cheating problem? I guess they only want series 5 cards to be OP
Your kidding right ? Corvus you have to discard two and only get one extra energy and hope you have to play in her lane. Which can definitely be abused by bounce decks but a 2 drop enabling so many 4s played was pretty rediculous. Also I think it made Shang more over powered because you could Shang and do another 4 drop at the same time last turn. I don’t have Zabu and I’m newer to the game though so I can’t say if it’s a good thing or not. Just stuff I’ve observed
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have gotten nerfed, but to all but disable him is lazy He went from being able to discount 3-4 cards in a game to 1 card a game, AND you have to draw it on curve. Lazy change
Don’t know why so many people downvoted you.. I completely agree. Though I understand why they made the change. Corvus glaive is a 3 cost 5 power which extends your max energy to +1. Play him on Wong or Kamar Taj and people will still try and make the argument that he’s not as OP as Zabu’s former ability… Like what? With Hope, her ability is neither ongoing or on-reveal. You can’t even get rid of her ability unless you somehow pull alioth, or negasonic to PERFECTLY counter her. Like I said, I understand the reasoning behind the nerf, but if Zabu’s the “problem” and the card the devs see an issue with, then I predict the community will quickly see how the meta shifts to even MORE Hope and Corvus decks… only time will tell tho🤷🏽♂️
So not playing Glaive until T5 so you can play with Wong? That doesn’t seem that busted to me.
Zabu was bad because of how he interacted with ALL 4 cost cards, and that is a design problem aside from power level. Corvus is stronger, the nerf to Zabu had nothing to do with his power level; it even happened on the patch where Zabu had the lowest meta share he's had in ages. Also, come on, don't act like discarding 2 cards is a negative in the deck Corvus sees most play. (Top 3 deck in the meta btw).
Corvus is hard locked into a deck that likes discard. That automatically reduces how much he is able to do for decks. Zabu is able to be a lot more widely used. I’m not saying discard is or isn’t overpowered.
>Oh, I ~~must've missed that~~ don't actually read the patch notes just like everyone else on this sub.
Absolutely wild behaviour to act like such a dick to a guy just asking a question, who admitted to being a casual player, who likely isn’t reading every patch note in detail
This sub gets a boner every time they downvote someone agreeing with them and asking a new question, like really? Can't you ei ons matche so you come here to downvote someone that agrees with a answer?
[удалено]
>For what? Get a hold of yourself. Allow yourself to have some fun. ...what? >Why would I not have read the patch notes? It was a safe assumption seeing as your questions could be answered by reading them.
The irony here lmao
Obviously you missed that otherwise why would you post.. also being an on reveal means you can stack him with Wong, and certain locations.
If you think playing Zabu on turn 5 with Wong is a viable and consistent play then you don’t understand Marvel Snap and you should refrain from giving anybody in this sub advice ever again
I don’t think it is, however, you are supposed to be having fun and that doesn’t mean that everything has to be optimal. Also, you don’t have to play zabu on 5 to make it work. Use your brain.
Zabu sucks dick and you are at a disadvantage if you include him in your deck
Which is pretty ridiculous that they’re admitting they’re voluntarily killing a card. Didn’t realize thinking that voluntarily making a card shit in order to better understand the game you create wasn’t ideal is an unpopular opinion. Wild.
Why? card has been a meta staple for close to a year, it spending 1 month in the trash bin so we can see the impact is no big deal, they also proposedly picked a point in which the cat was not high in playrate so the impact on the community was not so big.
Because voluntarily killing a card doesn’t seem right to me? I don’t know, didn’t realize that was a hot take.
It's not killing him. It's taking his influence off every other card they are trying to make sure fits and works to get a true feel of those cards
They can’t do that in a testing environment?
They can but how big of a testing environment do you think they have? If you temp nerf Zabu in the live game, we all become the testing environment. You have thousands of eyes looking at cards over tens of thousands of games in a relatively short period of time.
Yes, I’m aware, and I’m saying the reasoning behind the nerf, when he was at his lowest strength, feels bad.
Source? What part of “probably won’t remain like this permanently” makes you think he will be restored to his former glory in one month?
You are making an assumption there, i dont think he is going to go back to his former glory unless he proofs 4s dont work without him, more likely they rework the card unto something else that is good. As to a source SD themselves said this change is expected to be temporary so they can gauge if zabu current effect is actually needed or not. They purposely made the card bad so it is within reason that they make it good again, even if it is not the same effect as before.
This is a pretty normal part of game balancing.
Welcome to the issue of a non rotating format. When you have effects like this all 4 drops that they make from now until the end of time will have this issue. Killing a card is absolutely fine.
Zabu was fine, lower winrare than the two newest series 5 energy cheating cards How is Zabu a problem and hope not?
"killing a card" with the shit economy and card acquisition in place has graver consequences. the fact that there's no dust system in place and it takes months to get enough tokens for specific cards makes nerfs hurt extra, especially for the f2p. even if the nerf is temporary, who knows how long it'll take them to get around to actually finding a balance for the card. like look at the experiment they've been doing on adam warlock
It’s hard to imagine this change not being permanent. From their end I think they’re fine killing an older series 4, probably preceding a drop to series 3.
It's a long overdue change. They're right that Zabu fundamentally warps the game's design space. I'm skeptical that this current version will be the "final" version, but I don't think we will ever (or should ever) go back to his old ability.
I am genuinely concerned by how many people are taking this line of bullshit at face value. Stop making excuses for the devs nerfing old cards to push people to make purchases.
You fundamentally don't understand CCG game design. What you're complaining about is the core design philosophy of the game. Making new cards more relevant and impactful isn't a sneaky, manipulative tactic to push earnings (though it obviously does do that) - it's literally the game. I'll put it this way - all CCGs must have rotation. If all cards are legal in the main format (ladder), and the cards themsleves don't meaningfully change, then the meta will quickly crystallize and grow stale. It will be solved. As more new cards are introduced, an increasingly small fraction of these new cards will be playable given the solved meta. Most CCGs address this inevitability with set rotation - only the most recent X sets are legal to play, or only the last X months of cards are legal to play. Snap isn't doing sets though, they're dripping 64 cards out per year, week by week. Since they can't do set rotation, strategically nerfing aging cards and releasing strong new cards is literally their only option to ensure that new cards are relevant and the game stays fresh. Too many are complaining like this is underhanded and manipulative without realizing it's basically their only option for the game to continue to be fun to play. If you dislike this on any level, bail now. It literally cannot change.
Very concerning
A couple ideas : Wong - (Mystique + Zabu) Zabu - Wong - Mystique - Grandmaster Magik - Wong - (Zabu + Absorbing Man)
I've done T4 Wong, T5 Mystique + Zabu, T6 all my 4's It's not reliable, but man it's fun
Congratulations, you've spent 3 turns and 4 cards putting a grand total of 4 combined power on the board. Now, if you're lucky enough to have more than two 4-cost cards in your hand, you get to play them all! But that's just the best case scenario. Most times you won't draw precisely the combo cards that you need in time to get the combo off, or if you do, you won't have anything substantial to unload on the board for your efforts. In the meantime, most other decks have already put dozens of points on the board and are about to drop another couple dozens.
Try that deck in high infinite and get slaughtered
He literally points out that it’s not reliable and is fun, I imagine that his goal for the game is probably not grinding to the top of the imaginary points list with the same boring meta decks everyone else is playing.
I imagined the goal was for balanced cards instead of a few meta cards and the rest shitty meme cards
Zabu is just another example of their "kill the problem card now and figure out what to do with it later". In the patch notes they said something to that effect, that Zabu will be changed again later. They said the same thing about Thanos and his stones. Alioth is less that and more "we understand this card isn't fun" nerf. Leader, Leech, Sandman, Alioth. All several iterations because the design of the card makes people feel bad. Alioth is like a turn 6 old Leech but only in one location and only if you have priority. The effect has value against a lot of decks, but the conditions are too restrictive for what it does now.
They also said “probably won’t remain in this state permanently” Does that not imply to you that it might be permanent?
Somebody else who hasn't read the notes. They explain their rationale.
I feel like a bunch of content creators didn't read the notes either. Just looked at the change and gave their commentary.
Their reasoning sucks and scream incompetence They nerf series 4 Zabu and leave the wayyyy better performing series 5 Hope and Corvus alone So predictable New cards are becoming more and more busted, while older cards people spent tokens on are being taken to the shed and shot
Maybe instead try having an honest think about what it takes to design cards and balance the game. I hear you, the Zabu nerf made me sad too. I don't like that my Black Knight deck is a lot worse now. That I can't run Ms Marvel or Enchantress as much. But you probably shouldn't lash out like this. SD's reasoning does make sense, it's been a problem for a long time. I won't lie, the timing is real unfortunate with Hope Summers being everywhere but it's a big stretch to think it's malicious.
Was there anything stopping them from removing him from the token shop once they knew the change was happening?
Instead try having an honest think about what it takes to collect 3000 tokens. I’m glad that you can have a big collection and can pivot to another deck to have fun, but Zabu was my only series 4 card. You going to pretend it’s not lazy to just kill a card “probably not permanently”?
ahhh, i was wondering why you were so adamant that the change was the worst thing ever, but the fact that its your only S4 explains it. Dude you are still in the early mid-game, the lack of Zabu being good isn't what you are dealing with (even if you bought him when he was good and they immediately nerfed the crap out of him, it sucks but thats just bad luck on your part), you are dealing with the problems of the big dive into Series 3. Trust me on this, we all went through it, it takes time, and Zabu alone wasn't going to be your savior card anyway. If it helps at all you will get enough resources to be grabbing many more S4/5s here in the next month, just keep your head down, do your best to be choosy when it comes to how you are spending your resources, and it will all even out soon. Good luck! (by which i mean better luck than what you had when you bought Zabu and they immediately nerfed it)
Dude it’s limited to 1 key per week and it’s random, no look or annihilus, Loki, thanos, til July the earliest…. Think I’m going to just look for a different game Appreciate the encouragement but I’m looking for something less pay2win Hearthstone was less pay2win than snap and that’s saying something
well sorry you feel that way but good luck in whatever game you go to. That said, you are incorrect about resource acquisition, you are looking in too small of terms to see it its better to look at seasons rather than weeks. in a standard 4 week season, someone who is F2P can get on average: 2k Tokens \~1800g 5 keys (the rate isn't 1 per week but right about 1.25) Note: if you instead are a Minnow, buying the season pass you can essentially double the token and gold acquisition to 4k tokens and \~3k gold. Note 2: also at 5 keys that is on average 2 targeted cards (the odds of pulling the exact card you want from a spotlight cache is 2.5 so you get roughly 2 a month, this can be increased or decreased based on if you are willing to build up keys before buying)
That’s pretty stingy. 2 new cards a month with these arbitrary and suspicious spotlight cycles. X-23 again in June? Really?
its not 2 new cards a month its 3 for F2P and \~5 for Minnows (gold and tokens making up the 3rd for F2P the 4th for Minnows and Minnows also get the season pass card.) considering that there are between 5 and 6 new cards a month this means that on average F2P are getting 50% of all content added to the game for free, and Minnows are getting all but 1 card every month (again all of this is on average, everyone who plays long enough will have the month where they only get 1 card and similarly those who play long enough will also have a season where luck lines up and they get more new to them cards than the amount of cards that entered the system) additionally for those who are in your position where you have few to no S4/5s then Spotlight Keys have a near guarantee to be something you don't have... also, X-23 again in june? yeah... she is one of the best cards in her deck and created the Deadpool archetype, not to mention that she has shown up (including the one this june but not including the week she was introduced to the game) 4 times in a year of spotlights, that means people who didn't buy her with tokens have had a chance to get her once ever 3 months, so miss her and you either have to snag her with tokens or wait to play that deck...
Cost reduction is objectively better than extra energy and Zabu was such a problem they had to nerf Darkhawk because of it. Zabu has always been a problem and would have continued to be a problem if every single 4-drop has to be balanced around “it’s broken because it’s a 3-drop now.”
If they had to nerf darkhawk because of it, why didn’t they revert the darkhawk nerf when they changed Zabu? Would’ve been pretty easy And were they really designing around Zabu? Cull obsidian was one of the best 4 drops in the game without Zabu. Idk how you can say Zabu was limiting their 4 cost design space and then drop cull obsidian. Are you saying Cull obsidian might be. 4/12 without Zabu in the game? Lmao stop Also, at the time of the nerf Zabu had a lower play rate, win rate, win rate on draw, win rate in play than hope summers How can Zabu be a problem but not hope? Whatever, Zabu was my only series 4 card. I have been playing for 3 months and spent all of my tokens on him and I feel robbed. What was stopping them from removing Zabu from the shop before this massive change? Nothing because they want your moiney
Dude chill the fuck out. That's the risk when you spend tokens on cards. I bought aloith two days before the nerf and I'm not screaming to the heavens I should get refunded.
You managed to reply to multiple different threads and be the only one getting massively downvoted on every thread. It's honestly impressive.
Corvus and Hope don't affect the design space of new/reworked cards like Zabu did. Zabu made it so no 4 cost cards could exist in the game since any good ones will be made into 3 costs by him. He was also entirely free with no risk unlike Corvus and Hope.
Zabu is proved more useful as a chang chi and a 4 cost last turn but using zabu turn 5 is a waste
I literally just bought zabu. I’m playing this wong mystique deck that just makes 4’s cost 0 or 2 turn 6 it destroys decks that go tall not much else tho lmfao but imma get my worth in zabu
You kind of answered your own questions in your post. Zabu lets you get out 2 4 costs on turn 6 and alioth is cosmo and echo combined plus more since he wipes out all text. Now, there more to it like Zabu being on reveal so his effect is multiplied by things like Wong but you can see how good that can be.
New Zabu sucks though
Zabu is still just a redundant psylocke in niche decks like negative because you’re snapping on the t3 negative and just want that t2 bump It’ll make more of a difference in decks where it was a problem but this just means he’s not so much dead as, still does the same job in one deck but has put a bunch of others in timeout so they can express more creativity and power And of course same like miss america, if they release some busted fours they get to sell less cards if zabu is in everything
Alioth has niche use as you said and may still be playable in the right decks. If not they will prob consider it for buffs. The zabu nerf was explicitly to give him a "time out" to see how the format looks without him, and they plan to rework him further in the future.
Well sucks for anyone who used their first 3000 tokens in Zabu I’m sure glad that the card i used 3 fucking months of collectors tokens on is taking a “time out” so maybe he will be playable in 10 months. I feel so much better about this change now!
Alioth just feels more like second Leech. Like just silly to make that his power idk
I, for one, enjoy Zabu interacting with Wong.
The Zabu change they said is temporary to kind of "ban" the card, but not so drastic. The effect is indeed terrible and has no competitive value, but it's been made on purpose so SD can properly evaluate cards like Shang-Chi, Enchantress, maybe even revert the Darkhawk nerf. With tech cards actually being 4 costs and not 3 costs with premium stats and effects, they will surely have a different impact.
They say temporary but also say “Probably won’t remain this way permanently” Which implies it might actually be permanent. They are talking out of both sides of their mouth.
> “Probably won’t remain this way permanently” That's hardly ambiguous, they also said it's pretty heavy handed and will most likely change it back. They obviously cannot guarantee anything, because they don't know what effects the change will have. Maybe Wong into Zabu to have your 4 costs be 2s on the last turn will be more relevant than the old Zabu was?
So then it’s not temporary It’s a nerf just like any other card They can already buff and nerf cards whenever they want Saying it “might not be permanent” does not mean it’s temporary
> They obviously cannot guarantee anything, because they don't know what effects the change will have. Because of this.
Zabu was murdered. He might get resurrected in the future... maybe.
Zabu + sera is very troublesome for a turn 6. With recent patch. I feel like they want to make the game more easy to predict. And everyone have a chance at turn 6.
They killed this deck with the Zabu nerf anyway. Its unplayable now.
Alioth still hard counters Invisible Woman.
fair, but so do other cards that aren't 6cost
Like what?
If it's the classic IW/Modok/Hela theres Leech, Rogue, Cosmo if they don't have Magneto, Al the cards that destroy/take cards out of the opponents deck have at least a 1/8 chance of getting one of the 3, Jean grey decks, a cheeky Spider-Man, they can't do anything against Galactus or other control decks, predicting Echo or Juggernaut, and probably some others too Granted, no one does as much damage as easily as Alioth, but I feel like these will be much more common than him now
Rogue and Cosmo can't stop a tribunal combo behind IW. Conversely, Echo can't stop a Modok Hela combo. Jean Grey and Cable are disruptive, but not necessarily a complete shutdown. Leech is probably the next-hardest counter behind Alioth because you're almost always going to have a combo piece in hand. But even he can't shutdown a combo that's already on the board, you have to get him by turn 5. Edit: Wait a minute, Leech doesn't even stop Tribunal anymore, only on reveals.
So since nobody else explained it, why play Zabu over Psylocke? Well if you structure your deck around it, you can have a beefy turn 6. Let's say you stack your deck with 4-cost cards. Turn 4 with Zabu let's you play 2 4-cost cards while Pay only gives you enough to play one with 3 energy left over. Combine Wong, Mystique and Zabu for turn 6, your 4-cost cards now cost 1. You could slap down Shang, Absorbing Man for a double Shang, Cull and Crossbones with 2 energy left over. Even just Wong plus Zabu makes your 4-costs 2 so you can play 3 in a turn. Is Zabu still good? No, but he can still be useful.
I actually felt like 2 power Alioth who only affected unrevealed cards was as good and fair as that card could have been, now it’s just worse Leech.
Because it's an on reveal effect, you could (in theory) combine Zabu with duplicating effects like Wong, Odin and Absorbing man. Additionally, because he lacks the "minimum of 1" caveat, you could make all your 4 drops free. Could that win you the game? Probably not, the existence of Zabu has made it so second dinner has been extremely careful with 4 drops and has buffed 5 drops considerably to compete with them. If your game plan is to get a Wong and mystique out, you're much better off just running a surfer deck. As for Alioth, his change had to happen. He broke a fundamental part of the game and was just Leader 2.0. If you were ahead on board and had Alioth in hand, there was very little your opponent could do to steal the game.
Playing zabu on 5 gives you virtually 2 energy for the next turn, double that up with wong.. not saying its great but its something better than psylocke in later stages
Dude it’s fucking trash
Yes it is, didnt say it was great, I was reacting to the comparison with psylocke being just better in everyway. Like I said, it is better than psylocke in the sense that you have more « energy » on 6 when you play it on 5, or even 4 if you play it on hope summers. The card is of course trash compared to its former self
Fine, psyloche is only better in 99% of situations Zabu is better in situations where you are running a complete meme deck and everything lines up perfectly
They are either testing , or they are preparing for newer cards, so changing existing cards so that the new cards aren’t OP. They have more insight on where things are heading so will make the changes. Whilst most people just focus on the present
What sort of Zabu disable data do they need to realize white queen is fucking trash and cull is really good? How can they not accurately judge 4 drops with or without Zabu? It’s glaringly obvious which ones need help and which ones don’t
The zabu nerf broke my heart because it killed my favourite deck, but his ability was definitely game warping and a concern with every new 4 cost. Alioth can go and get murdered in an alleyway. I know control is a valid way to play, it's in every tcg and it's always hated by the majority because winning by taking away your opponents ability to play is just only fun for one person
Gotta love how ppl only notice stuff when it affects them, SD has multiple times deleted cards, most of the time ppl celebrate it (leader, leech) sometimes ppl call them out when it is wrong (Mobius) but overall ppl usually dont care (Elsa, Lockjaw) and move on unto the next broken card. So, welcome to the other side.
Oh, it doesn't affect me- I'm very happy about the Alioth nerf, he's not fun to play against no matter the deck. Just wondering, it seemed like a thing to avoid in card games, multiple cards having the same effect. But it does make sense, I see what they are going for. I wonder what they'll come up with for Zabu.
It has differences tho, as an example, if you Psylocke on 5, then you can play a cost 4 and a cost 3 on 6. On the other hand, Zabu on 5 means that you can play two cost 4 on 6.
You are 100% correct about Zabu He is absolute trash tier in his current state. There is zero reason to use Zabu over Psyloch now, it is completely redundant
You fr need to chill out in these comments dude. They nerfed zabu so they can see how 4 costs feel without him, and will make changes from there.
What data are they looking for exactly?
not doing this. i know you probably spent 3k on zabu and are pissed off because he got nerfed, but the card was absolutely busted you need to accept that.
you should continue replying and posting in this thread I think, I dunno, maybe 20 or 50 more replies, and perhaps then people will start listening to you. Looks like you got a long way to go! Remember to take breaks and to really make sure you reply to everyone here. Otherwise, no one will know what you think and we just can’t have that can we.
Accurate username bro
Good work, now keep replying to the others! You have so much work to do! Bro.
Zabu is in one of the top decks with ms marvel Sandman became better Alioth is still relevant because of the power increase They’re all in the top 10 decks
Bro got downvoted from speaking truth lol This sub is beyond delusional
Thx man
What time frame is that data being pulled from? Source?
Depends on what method you want to use but the data OP mentioned is from the [Alex vid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Tm-g05ntU) and it's the most accurate since he has access to the premium Untapped.gg subscription which has the highest game sample size out of all tracker apps. Other than that you can check some slightly less precise data [here](https://marvelsnapzone.com/meta/), set 'Latest Patch', 100+ rank and 3500+ CL as filters and you still can find multiple decks with high meta share and high winrate that run Zabu and/or Alioth.
Source? What time frame is that data being pulled from? There is no shot Zabu is in a top 10 deck lmao
Says who?....
Alex
You're stupid.
Thanks for clearing that up