OTA Review - 8/27 - with Decks!

Second Dinner has billed this OTA as "one nerf, three buffs, and two bigger reworks." Let's see if we agree! Below you'll find the changes, what they mean for the metagame, and some deck ideas to hit the new post-OTA meta hard!

The Changes

• Sam Wilson Captain America: 2/3 ⇨ 2/2
• Spider-Sense: 5-Cost ⇨ 6-Cost and +2 ⇨ +3 Power
• Klaw: 5/4 ⇨ 4/2, and +7 Power ⇨ +6 Power
• Death Fractured Frontier: 5/8 ⇨ 5/9
• Mister Fantastic First Steps: 3/4 ⇨ 3/5
• Strong Guy: 3/3 ⇨ 3/4

The Nerf

• [Old] 2/3 - On Reveal: Add Cap's Shield to another location. Ongoing: Cap's Shield is Moveable.
• [Change] 2/3 ⇨ 2/2

Sam Wilson has been cracked for a while, even following previous changes. He's been killing for me in draft, he's a staple in Aurora decks, and the Shield is amazing anti-tech tech! He'll still be an important and highly-played card with 2 Power.

Still the One

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This is still the best deck in the game and the #1 deck I would recommend to players still chasing Infinite this season, despite the tap to Sam.

The "bigger reworks"

• [Old] 5 - On Reveal: Give your characters here +2 Power. Costs 1 less for each Moveable card you've played.
• [New] 6 - On Reveal: Give your characters here +3 Power. Costs 1 less for each Moveable card you've played.

Spider-Sense lacks enough Moveable enablers to be valuable. Second Dinner has decided that the payoff is the issue. I don't agree and making it cost even more adds an extra hurdle. Still, +3 is a lot and it's worth trying to find a way to leverage and multiply that. This will probably become busted at some point when we have more Movable cards!

Sensors

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If we're gonna try to get use out of Spider-Sense, we really have to try to leverage those +3s for maximum benefit.

• [Old] 5/4 - Ongoing: The location to the right has +7 Power.
• [New] 4/2 - Ongoing: The location to the right has +6 Power.

This is a fascinating change. They've made him cheaper, but at the cost of 3 total Power. Is the goal to make this more relevant or just to change the play pattern around it? Cards that can impact multiple lanes or closed off lanes are important and once that cost 4 even more-so. Klaw joins the likes of Ms. Marvel and Omega Red as 4-Cost ongoings that affect multiple lanes. As the one of those three without any condition, he has a good chance to be the best of the bunch (not that that's saying all that much).

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C2 is an archetype that has fallen on harder and harder times as Second Dinner's project to move a bunch of 2-Power cards to 3-Power continues. Could Klaw bring it back? Eh, the deck really needs more reliable location mitigation than Nico. If you want to play Uatu in this, I'm not gonna stop you.

The Buffs

• [Old] 5/8 - On Reveal: Resurrect all your destroyed characters to random location.
• [Change] 5/8 ⇨ 5/9

Death landed about as flat as I expected, but I would have liked to see some kind of payoff passed on to the revived cards rather than just a point of Power. Something like 5/5 and the resurrected cards get +1 would have been a more interesting change.

• [Old] 3/4 - End of Turn: Give a card in your hand -1 Cost or +2 Power.
• [Change] 3/4 ⇨ 3/5

I'm surprised Second Dinner made this change. First Steps Mr. Fantastic was one of the strongest cards of all time upon his release. Moving him up to 3-Cost effectively killed his play rate. Contrary to popular Reddit belief, that's not the type of change Second Dinner makes often. I think this is a safe change in the current environment and Mr. F has plenty of competition. Still, I think he was unplayed, but not as far off playability as many believed. He's worth a look.

• [Old] 3/3 - Ongoing: +6 Power if your hand has 1 or fewer cards.
• [Change] 3/3 ⇨ 3/4

Strong Guy is a cool quirky character and a cool quirky card. One of the rulers of the pre-release Beta period, Strong Guy has been an afterthought for a loooong time. Come on, Second Dinner, would taking a swing at 3/5 have really been so risky?

Guido Carosella

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This is similar to a deck I would whip out from time to time for some fun wins. Strong Guy can fit right into this deck that pretty reliably ends up with 1 or fewer cards in hand.

Final Thoughts

It's a mix of small buffs and side-grade-ish buffs. Sam Wilson needed to be hit, but I would have liked to see a small tap to Fractured Frontier Thanos, despite him engendering the type of meta I personally enjoy (mid-range madness! all mid-range is viable!). Mostly, I wish at least one or two of the buffs had been a slightly bigger swing. Maybe the devs are distracted by Draft mode too!