Marvel Snap’s latest OTA update could save us all from Hela and Thanos-dominated meta

Are we saved?

Marvel Snap November season cover art, showing Spectrum, Ms. Marvel, and Captain Marvel
Image via Second Dinner

Marvel Snap’s new OTA update has gone live with some pretty hefty nerfs to meta staples like Darkhawk and Lockjaw.

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Thanos and Hela are directly in Second Dinner’s sights with this update, with the changes intending to bring them back to Earth a little bit. But there are also several buffs to weaker cards, like Adam Warlock, Swordmaster, and Vulture.

Here’s every card that’s changing in the Marvel Snap update today, now live in-game.

Marvel Snap Feb. 29 OTA patch notes

Three women in armor. One with wings, one wearing a headpiece, and another wearing leather in Marvel Snap
We should see some changes in the meta now. Image via Marvel Snap

The biggest changes this week are to Darkhawk and Lockjaw, two very strong cards that are enabled by other cards. Instead of changing other cards (like Zabu for Darkhawk or Thanos and Hela for Lockjaw), they’ve been targeted with nerfs.

Darkhawk is going from a four/zero to a five/four as he has “consistently flirted with individual performance rates at the top of the metagame and fueled multiple decks to similar heights,” according to Second Dinner.

“We resolved to wait and see what happened after Blob and, well, it looks basically the same,” Second Dinner said. “Darkhawk has spent a long time at the top of the mountain as an individual card, so we’re making this change to freshen the landscape. There’s every chance we’ll revert this down the road, in a different metagame.”

Lockjaw, meanwhile, is getting an increase in both power and cost, but his higher cost will make him way less manageable in decks, especially those like Thanos where he’s fed Infinity Stones.

“Hela and variations on Thanos have both been leaning heavily on Lockjaw lately, and while the decks are fair on performance the card is a bit of an outlier,” Second Dinner said.” Lockjaw is fairly clearly a design risk, as a card that ‘cheats’ energy and kind of draws cards. However, Lockjaw is also a blast to play with! We’ve tried to maintain a good balance around the effect, but in the last few months it’s been a growing concern that even affected future design work. Moving Lockjaw up to four-cost takes away an entire turn of swaps, which is a big loss but reins in the raw potential quite a bit. We’re compensating that with a healthy amount of extra power.”

Elsewhere, big buffs are abound for Adam Warlock, Ant-Man, America Chavez, Swordmaster, and Vulture. You can check out the full notes below.

All buffs and nerfs in Marvel Snap Feb. 29 OTA patch

Buffed

Adam Warlock

  • Previously: 2/0
  • New: 5/4

America Chavez

  • Previously: 2/3
  • New: 1/2

Ant-Man

  • Previously: 1/1 (plus three in a full lane)
  • New: 1/1 (plus four in a full lane)

Swordmaster

  • Previously: 3/6
  • New: 3/7

Vulture

  • Previously: 3/3 (plus five when moved)
  • New: 3/3 (plus six when moved)

Nerfed

Darkhawk

  • Previously: 4/0
  • New: 5/4

Lockjaw

  • Previously: 3/2
  • New: 4/5

Changed

Forge

  • Previously: 1/1
  • New: 2/2
Author
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Scott Duwe
Senior Staff Writer & Call of Duty lead. Professional writer for over 10 years. Lover of all things Marvel, Destiny 2, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and more. Previous bylines include PC Gamer, Red Bull Esports, Fanbyte, and Esports Nation. DogDad to corgis Yogi and Mickey, sports fan (NY Yankees, NY Jets, NY Rangers, NY Knicks), Paramore fanatic, cardio enthusiast.