Collectible card games rarely have metas within their mechanics that can be too overpowering, but Marvel Snap apparently has one based on Iron Man and Onslaught.
Ever since Magic: The Gathering, collectible card games (CCGs) are built on rules and mechanics that an effective player can exploit, if they know how certain cards interact with each other. In some rare cases, the game designers will have to step in to depower this (commonly called nerfing). Whether it’s to ban certain cards from play or modifying the rules of how they work.
But is this virtually two-card combo of Iron Man and Onslaught broken enough to warrant a nerf? Check out the details below.
Marvel Snap has only been out for a bit, but it has quickly gained a strong player base. The addicting and quick-to-learn system combined with the extremely popular Marvel Comics IPs is a virtual one-two punch for this digital mobile collectible card game.
But speaking of a one-two combo, there is apparently an interesting "cheat" to get 1000 points easily in a Marvel Snap game with only two specific cards.
Overpower
Cards with the Ongoing ability can be very useful with Marvel Snap. Devil Dinosaur, for instance, can gain +2 Power for each card in your hand. Another example is Captain America, who gives a bonus of +1 Power to other cards in the same location.
Two of the most popular cards with Ongoing abilities are Iron Man and Onslaught. Tony Stark displays that genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist muscle with an Ongoing ability that doubles your total Power in the location he is placed in. On the other hand, Onslaught doubles the other Ongoing effects at the location.
By themselves, Iron Man can double Onslaught’s Power of 7 to 14. Not bad.
Now, assume there is a total of 10 Power in the location they are in. Iron Man doubles it to 20. OK, cool. But Onslaught doubles that again, so it’s now 40.
Impressive. But then there is also the location effects to factor in. Specifically, the Onslaught Citadel location. This particular location doubles Ongoing effects again. All of them.
So now, you are looking at a 256 multiplier (2 to the power of 8). Onslaught’s 7 Power will result in a total Power of 1792! You can see why this can be overpoweringly good.
Power down
With that said, there are cards that can counter this ridiculously good combo of Iron Man and Onslaught.
The Enchantress can remove Ongoing abilities in a location with her On Reveal ability. The X-Men’s Rogue can steal Ongoing abilities at a location with her On Reveal (though the target is random). And Scarlet Witch can replace the location with a random one with her On Reveal. These ladies can put a damper on Iron Man and Onslaught combo decks, if the player is not careful.
The newest MARVEL SNAP patch is here!
🔹Series 4 & 5 cards are here—including Thanos and Galactus
🔹Find and pin your next card in the Token Shop and snag them with Collector's Tokens
🔹For balance changes, bug fixes, & more updates see the full notes 👇https://t.co/KYp6m0823H pic.twitter.com/lFDqsOJ701— MARVEL SNAP (@MARVELSNAP) November 30, 2022
Finally, developer Second Dinner and publisher Nuverse have responded to the feedback regarding the Iron Man + Onslaught combo. The most recent update changes Onslaught’s Ongoing ability to no longer be calculated exponentially. There's that nerf that we mentioned earlier that happens when a card in a CCG is too good!
Per the developer notes:
When you start stacking Onslaught’s doubling effect, things get out of hand very quickly! We want to avoid situations where players are waiting for cards like Ironheart to play their animations for long stretches of time, so we’re changing the stacking to be additive instead of exponential.
While this brings Onslaught’s stacking on Iron Man’s Ongoing to a more reasonable level, it’s still a potent combo. And with the new The Power Cosmic season, the introduction of the Token Shop, and Series 4 and Series 5 cards incoming, who knows what new broken meta will arrive on Marvel Snap?
Marvel Snap is currently available on Android, iOS and Microsoft Windows platforms. You can download the game on Google Play, the Apple App store, and on Steam.
