Marvel Snap’s latest patch nerfs Galactus at last

Marvel Snap’s powerful — and controversial — Galactus card has finally been nerfed… somewhat.

Following a patch that rolled out on Tuesday, Galactus is still capable of destroying all locations other than his own, but now the player has to be winning his location (with Galactus as the only card there) in order to destroy the others.

Previously, Galactus was a 6-cost 2-power card, and if you played him on a location where you had no other cards, he’d destroy the other two locations. Post-update, Galactus is a 6-cost 7-power card — not quite enough power to guarantee you can win a location with him alone.

Developer Second Dinner gave a lengthy explanation for the change in patch notes published Tuesday. The studio said it had been keeping an eye on Galactus since launch, and observed that his power had warped games from their original goal of claiming two locations “to waging war around cards that ‘counter’ him/his finishers and priority.”

“Galactus’ play rate was moving past the thresholds we set to determine both competitive diversity and also how frequently the game gets reduced to that state,” Second Dinner added. The studio noted that Galactus can be countered, and wanted to give time for Marvel Snap’s metagame to sort out how players can deal with Galactus.

“[B]ut it hasn’t,” the studio said. “Galactus’ popularity has increased, his winrate has only grown, and many players don’t even enjoy beating him — these are problems worth solving.”

After considering other changes, developers settled on the winning restriction. “Caring about winning this way lets players contest Galactus within the core fun of Snap — using Power to challenge for locations,” they wrote. If this change goes too far, or even not far enough, they still have means of tuning him further, they said.

Tuesday’s patch also delivered a new game mode, Conquest, to Marvel Snap, and made smaller adjustments to the Maria Hill and Dazzler cards. Marvel Snap is a free-to-play game, available for iOS and Android devices, as well as Mac and Windows PCs.