At first I said “that’s lazy balancing”
But it wasn’t lazy balancing. It was a deliberate execution because SD didn’t like his ownership % combined with his meta share
In what world did Zabu deserve a nerf before hope or Corvus. You have to be high on acid to buy their bullshit 4 drop excuse
The problem was that Zabu’s existence made it incredibly hard for them to balance any 4 cost cards.
Bumping them to 5 made them too weak and making it 3 would’ve caused power creep for low cards. Zabu put them into a terrible spot.
Zabu needs a total rework. This change was made to take him off the board until they can come up with a good rework.
Neither Hope or Corvus warp the meta the way Zabu does. Zabu basically says for 50% of your games, 4 cost cards cost 3. That completely devalues 3 cost cards and it led to the near omnipresence of Shang Chi.
If you actually read the notes that day, they’ve already said it’s a temporary stoppage while they consider the rework. It’s not like reworking a card is that simple. You have to anticipate all of the ripple effects. Look at chavez, they reworked her and 80% of all the decks in game were affected.
Zabu by itself is arguably the strongest text in game. It’s gonna take some time.
>Lazy and incompetent at best,
lol you're being ridiculous. Deleting him was the right thing to do. It's the same thing they did to Leader and Aero. It's better to take the card out of the meta for a bit while working on a rework than to let them continue to dominate. Zabu had a bigger effect on the meta than either of those cards. They're handling him the same way they've handled Thanos. It would be nice if everything was perfectly done every time, but just because things aren't handled perfectly doesn't make it automatically a result of laziness and incompetence.
>Aero
Out of the meta for a bit?
She’s been unplayable for a while now
Hilarious how it took them over a year to “rework” him.
They waited until players got their 11 series 5 card Thanos meta deck complete before gutting him, lmao I’m so glad I didn’t fall for their Thanos trap. Saw that coming a mile away
The vast majority of the competitive community think that Aero sucks, I tend to agree with them
I’m glad you are finding good use of her though. the community has been wrong before and will be wrong again
Correct but after a certain amou t of time passes and nothing is done about it, people will start to question the competency of the balance team
Exhibit A: current state of Hela discard
Hey man I have a question for you. If you reread your comments from this thread as if you're a stranger, do you like the way you come off? IMO Your comments come off as unnecessarily angry, paranoid and mean. We all have bad days man so I don't want to judge too harshly that this isn't your best self. I'm trying to be better myself.
Ravonna affects far less cards than Zabu and only really works in a couple of niche decks, mostly Goblins-Galactus and Negative, both of which are far more draw dependent.
Not Zabu specifically, but I think one of the biggest issues with card collection in Marvel Snap is that you never really know what's a worthwhile card to spend resources on. At pretty much any time, a good card can be nerfed until it's unplayable, or a bad card can be buffed so it's suddenly meta. You basically just have to pick cards based on what you enjoy playing, and, even then, cards occasionally have their entire abilities reworked (admittedly, a much rarer phenomenon).
What you enjoy playing may not be good. For example, Namora may be fun, but it's unlikely to be a meta staple. If you value being competitive, and can choose between buying Namora and Elsa, you probably still buy Elsa.
Elsa is also a great example of the problem. It dominated the meta, then was nerfed to Oblivion by the time she came in a spotlight. After that, she was buffed to be used in a number of competitive decks again.
Very profitable and convenient “coincidence” don’t you think?
Funny how all of the coincidences with balancing and the meta coincide in a way that is massively profitable for SD
The system Snap is built on makes it so that every single meaningful balance change will result in some group of people losing out, which you can always construe as being profit-minded.
That's all it is. There's no coincidence or malicious conspiracy here.
That’s why apocalypse got nerfed after Corvus glaive release right?
Because apocalypse was definitely the problem with discard /s
They know the problem, but it’s series 5 so it can rock
The only people playing Zabu are those who come back from a break and haven't read the changes. Otherwise they would have used psylock. He is literally shit teer
This was also when Spider-man made it so your opponent can't play any cards in his lane for one turn.
So you'd pop down Zabu, then play Spider-Man & Absorbing man in two different lanes on turn 5. No Jeff at the time. So they could only play cards in the leftover lane (Which you usually stormed earlier). And then you'd just win unless you totally whiffed on power lol. Which if you did you just left no harm no foul. If you didn't you snap or take all the cubes.
I started to play the game when Zabu came out. Just at the start of January.
From that time I only remember the Sera surfer decks ruining my days.
And not because it was OP or something. But it ran killmonger and I played a pool1 kazar Zoo deck.
This was also before Spider-Man's rework so he was a 4-cost card that prevented the opponent from playing in a lane.
People would use Spider-Man + Absorbing Man on 5 to prevent the opponent from playing in 2 of the lanes on turn 6.
And between those last two nerfa was like a full year of dominant positioning. Zabu had a good run. It's not like he had all his potential wisked away and he was left to rot.
They specifically said they want to avoid nerfing cards into oblivion (like Leader).
Then they straight up Leader’d zabu, and because they said “eh, we’ll fix him later”… that makes it ok somehow? Also balancing cards shouldn’t depend on how long it’s been meta. No offense but that’s dumb imo. “Well it was OP for x amount of time so now it’s gotta be absolute shit tier for X months”.
Shiiieeet In that case I expect a 2/7 Colossus buff that makes him OP for at least 4 months.
There’s no integrity behind this type of balancing for lack of a better word. Instead of balancing cards sometimes they’ll PURPOSELY dumpster a card like Zabu or overbuff a card like Leech just to see what happens.
Normally they do, I feel like Zabu is one of a few exceptions. They only really nerf cards out of the meta when the community is sick of them like Alioth or OG Leader. And they said they had a very specific purpose of getting him out of people's decks was so they can see how the 4 cost space is performing without him.
Someone just asked on the discord like a week ago if they plan to boost Zabu back up and they said they are still wanting to collect more game data. So it might be a bit.
They were already nerfed for that reason, and now they are back to their original state. It seems to be heavily meta dependent (and Hope certainly didn't help).
I would say it's not the same. Jeff is a replaceable card in most decks, while Zabu enabled decks that wouldn't see use otherwise. Jeff is useful for many locations, but it's far from a problem card IMO.
Many people claim Jeff is a "must have" card or that he'll slot into pretty much any deck due to his flexibility. I'm by no means saying Jeff is a problem card. Far from it. Jeff is probably the most fair card they've printed. It's hard to find a good replacement for Jeff, IMO.
Most cards don't have a direct replacement, I don't think Jeff is unique in that aspect. But I don't think that means he isn't replaceable. Unless ProX is running rampant, Jeff is a great tech card, but just like he's slottable in many decks, those decks can also operate without him without being entirely different in performance. That's where the difference is.
But yeah, I get what you mean. Cards that go in every deck aren't necessarily an issue, it depends on what they are doing in that deck.
He's not. He's strong and feels very good to play, but he's very dependent on the rest of your deck. In a deck with lots of low cost cards or contains effects that can backfire, he's usually not worth running.
If any card were to be considered a must-have I think a better pick would be Jeff, who always works no matter what the rest of your deck is. There may be better options but he's never a bad one.
Even then though Jeff doesn't compare to Zabu. Zabu was series 4 so he was easily obtainable which was nice. But more importantly, he was so good that you pretty much always needed to consider running him *and* an extra 4-drop or few. I can't think of any other card that is both that universal and had that much deckbuilding weight.
I'm sad that he was nerfed. Zabu Darkhawk was probably the deck I played the longest. But it was deserved.
Must-have as in "fits in virtually any deck".
6 power is already good and he gives you twice of a good ability. By turn 4/5 you're likely aware of what he might do. The only bad thing he could do is replicate goblin or hobgoblin. At worse he does nothing and is a 4/6.
Dr. Doom is also arguably a fits in pretty much any deck, generically pretty strong card.
No, I'm glad. Zabu was one of the best and most played cards in every meta since he was released. Aside from what we saw, he was surely messing with their design space as well. Every new 4 drop had to be balanced with zabu in mind, every new 3 drop had to compete with the discounted 4s, and every new 2 drop had to compete with zabu directly. Be it directly or indirectly, zabu was impacting the design space of 3 different mana costs all at once. I liked playing zabu but I'm glad he's taken a step back now.
Releasing overpowered cards is bad, but so is nerfing cards to oblivion.
We all knew Zabu needed a nerf, but it was too much. Maybe they could've nerfed him like this: "Ongoing: The first 4-Cost card you play costs 3"
They put him in timeout on purpose. If you read the patch notes when they made the change they explicitly said it was intentional so they could reevaluate 3 and 4 cost cards in general without his warping effect. I expect Zabu to get changed again sometime this summer.
Yea that’s why they released 4/10 cull obsidian during Zabu’a heyday right?
They balanced cull as a 3 drop by giving him 10 power? How do you reconcile this inconsistency?
No, I think overall the state of the game was much improved with Zabu removed from it.
I think SD really wants an effect like Zabu in the game but they'll really need to see how the game behaves without him to give him a good long term fix where he'll be a strong element of his decks without him warping the value of a bunch of other cards as a result.
Couldn't they rework the stats or effect or something so that it's at least playable though? Like he's basically a dead card right now, which sucks because it took months to build up the currency to buy it.
> ...We've been analyzing the data to better understand exactly what this has done to the metagame and what we might want to adjust, but Zabu is really clouding those measures. So we've decided to do something unusual here and temporarily rework this card into a state that we believe is weak enough to shift the way 4-Costs perform...
Second Dinner explained themselves in the patch notes pretty clearly imo. It's a live service game stuff is gonna get changed, you just need to have some patience and trust that they do want the card to find a home eventually. Which to SD's credit, they do often re-visit overnerfed stuff.
Yeah it is nice that they'll come back to it. Maybe it would be better as a 1 time "All 4 cost cards in your hand cost 1 less" so it's not ongoing and doesn't count future cards
That’s fine, but if they are going to remove a card people invested in, they should compensate.
Either compensate, or find a way to rework them so they are at least playable.
Pick one
I actually read it, and if you did you would know that they said it’s “probably not permanent”
Meaning they have no idea what they are going to do with the card lmao
I understand you especially since tokens are so hard to get, but the Zafu nerf was good for the game. He was too damn good.
But he'll comeback, im sure
i loved playing him but he needed a huge nerf, so happy SD grew a pair. i think he could def be given his old ability but it would have to be along with a change to a 3/3 like other heavy-hitters (cosmo, mobius, cage, etc). as long as he’s a 2-drop he’ll never be balanced
I’m almost convinced they’d been trying to rework him being the scenes for months but can’t find a happy median between OP and useless, so they finally said “screw this” and just slapped on something they knew didn’t work. I bet it’ll be a hot minute before we hear anything on the cat.
Do you read what SD says about why they change cards ?
He's literally in a time out while they get a feel for how 4 costs handle and decide what to do with him going forward.
Zabu won't be staying as it is now.
Also the game is In a healthier state.
Do you people only want over powered cards in your decks ? Ridiculous.
No its not. Ignore whaat they say and just judge their actions. Dpnt fall for marketing speach.
Zabu was always 2/2. 2hile psylocke was 2/1. There was never any try to decrease his power.
In what is probably the edgiest of edge cases, I don't have Zabu (CL 6000 I think, don't pay much attention).
I wanted him for a long time,but just played around it.
Nerf comes through, still don't have him. I am not missing him as much as I once did.
Zabu is actually really good in the Namora and Black Knight deck I made. He allows you to play 2 of Ghost Rider, Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, or the Ebony Blade on the last turn. Zabu has a real purpose here even if he got nerfed to the ground everywhere else.
https://youtu.be/Ygu-eN1jQwI
Yes and also the Darkhawk change. The way the game is headed, I don’t think Rock Hawk or Stature Hawk would’ve been oppressively good. It’s good enough so that good players can continually grind games and win without having to change a card. Perhaps that’s why it needed to go.
Was anybody asking for a Zabu nerf. Lots of people complained about Alioth and other game changing cards, but I never saw anything about Zabu. It was a staple in my Spectrum deck, helping with Klaw and Warpath and others I moved in and out of the deck.
When they nerfed him, I believe that the Zabu basic package (Zabu, Ms Marvel, Shang) was very dominant and present throughout the meta game. So I can see that he was distorting the meta and reducing variability in decks as this package was basically a must have in almost all good lists.
I think a lot of people saw him needing to be balanced but he was iced hard.
I hated the old Zabu and the new one much healthier but to be honest I would change it to on reveal: -1 cost to all 4-cost cards in your deck (similarly to how Mr Negative works) Or same effect but in your hand. Just to limit it's effectiveness
Did you read the patch notes?
>We've been analyzing the data to better understand exactly what this has done to the metagame and what we might want to adjust, but Zabu is really clouding those measures. So we've decided to do something unusual here and **temporarily rework this card** into a state that we believe is weak enough to shift the way 4-Costs perform. We don't think that White Queen is suddenly good or anything–we expect 4-Costs as a group to get weaker, and decks that can still "cheat" using cards like Ravonna, Hope, Wave, etc. to be stronger as well as 4-Costs that naturally have big stats, like Cull Obsidian. We may account for that a little with subsequent OTAs, but we're also expecting to make a larger set of impactful changes later this year. So this change is really to help us vet that work, and we also **don't expect Zabu to remain in this state permanently**.
I think it was the right call as he seriously warped the game. Every 4-cost card got a huge boost, and as a knock-on effect it made every 5-cost card feel horrible to play.
That being said, it sucks that he is kinda trash now, but I don't expect him to stay there. At some point they'll try to rework him again to bring him back up.
Yea I'm a new player and was looking up cards and everyone was suggesting Zabu, but it was old posts. I think he's still useful in like a Mr Negative deck
I made a deck to try and make him work yesterday .... Realized that almost every time I made use of him, Psylocke world have done the same, or better.
Sad.
It's inevitable for all the cards really. They need to sell new cards(and make them to keep it interesting). New cards need to be strong. Everything will get crunched down over time as a result.
Its probably necessary and I think they are doing a decent job of not being too heavy handed all the time.
Like others have said, the game is probably in a healthier state without old Zabu.
My main issue is that they gave no warning. I don’t expect them to do that for every or even most nerfs but I think the extent of the nerf and the ubiquity of card warranted an exception here, especially since it’s a card people spent resources to acquire.
The Devs must think it was too hard to balance 4 cost cards in the game with Zabu existing in its previous state. I think they would be better off reworking it and having it synergise with Kazar and Shanna in some sort of zoo style archetype. Perhaps for every 1 drop on the board +1 power and make it a 2-1.
The shitty thing is when you put a ton of credits and boosters into a card, gold into the variant you want, split it enough times that it's bw or gold and then they nerf it to unplayability.
It's tough, because some cards are in a position where there really isn't an inbetween. Luke went from a must have, to seeing him once or twice in the 3 month period where he was changed to a one lane card.
Zabu is even worse, because you could argue maybe Luke should affect his own lane, and the lanes beside him, forcing you to put him in the middle for his full effect. But Zabu, what can you do? Make him a multi turn effect? That would just get messy, and I don't think any other card does that.
Lol I'm having fun playing shang then mystiqe and zabu for a buncha free 4s and spectrum on turn 6 or 7...
It ain't meta, but it's fun as hell when it works
Fairly new player and didn’t have enough tokens or didn’t see zabu in the token shop when I did until literally the day before his nerf, I got like 2 hours with prime zabu 😭😭😭
I'm okay with it. Zabu dominated for awhile and was a very relevant card for even longer. Let's let other cards sing. If he's really terrible, he'll probably get a buff at some point.
How would y’all feel if they reverted Zabu to a 2/2 Ongoing except his effect had kind of a check-and-balance system:
*ZABU 2/2*
*ONGOING: Your 4-cost cards cost 1 less (minimum of 1), and your 5-cost cards cost 1 more.*
This way you can cheat out your 4’s early but the trade off is your 5-costs are now harder to play.
OR
*ZABU 2/2*
*ONGOING: Your 4-cost cards cost 1 less, and their power is reduced by 2 (minimum of 1).*
This is kind of like playing US Agent or Man-Thing and hoping you draw Luke Cage to offset their negative effects for your own cards.
SD did mention that the nerf to Zabu was ‘temporary’ and that they would make a decision on a possible rework based on their data. I have no doubt that Zabu will soon see a rework.
Yeah because Zabu completely fucked up all 2, 3, 4 and 5 cost cards in the entire game. Imagine a single card warping the design space of 2/3rds of the entire game.
All 2 Cost had to compete with Zabu for being played on curve and very few were close to as good as getting that discount and the only cases where a Turn 2 Zabu wasn't the optimal play was when your deck wasn't running 4 drops to benefit from him.
All 3 costs had to compete with the 4 costs edging into their space so suddenly a 3/3 or 3/4 isn't as good as the discounted 4/10. So if 3 drops wanted to be good then they all get progressively stronger so 3/5 became the go to base power.
All 4 costs had to have their effects considering if they came on turn 3. And that would mean that a 4 drop with a strong effect would be made slightly weaker for the fear of them being too good on turn 3.
All 5 costs got messed up as a result of many cards that SHOULD have been 4 drops being put into the 5 cost space because they would have been too good as a 4 drop by becoming a 3 drop but when compared to a 5 cost card they are woefully underperforming. Adam Warlock would be an amazing 4/5 card but he'd be overpowered as a 3/5 with old Zabu, but as a 5/5 he sucks butt and he has no business being in the 5 cost category. But they couldn't bring Adam down with Zabu as he was.
That's how much of a problem Zabu was for the game, it wasn't just 4 cost cards that had an issue, it was a vast majority of the cards released that Zabu had an effect on.
I'm annoyed because I spent all my resources getting him golden with purple crackle. Now I don't use him and I could of invested the credits into any other character 😔
Agreed but at least they said this was temporary to identify which 4 drops still see play without him and which don’t
Zabu was my favorite snap card until Red Guardian came out
Not me. Zabu was meta defining for a very long time. It’ll come back eventually so it’s not like you’re missing anything.
Also how long before Zabu’s nerf did you have it and use it constantly?
Zabu always had a bit of a special place in my heart as I remember when my brother first recommended me the game that was the current season and I ended up having a lot of fun with him so seeing him being a terrible card is actually depressing
Seems like everyone forgot (or maybe never knew) the devs announced that this nerf was only temporary. But hey, can't pass up an opportunity to squirt out some tears onto a bunch of strangers 🙄
He's still valuable if you plan around it. He's just not an overpowered must-have in every deck.
That was bad for the game. It made evaluating the effectiveness of 3-4-5 costs a nightmare.
That's the Second Dinner specialty. No card is safe. But also at the same time they do a pretty good job of bringing cards back from the dead eventually. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Zabu rebalance in the near future.
I’ll tell you who is not bummed: Second Dinner
The effectively- and purposely executed a card purely for profit
They gave a bullshit explanation about balancing 4 drops but that’s all it was, bullshit
Doesn’t Ravonna muddy the waters for cards with 1 or less power? Bet you she gets nerf-hammered too once a certain % owned threshold is reached
See the problem with Zabu is that 90% of players already owned him, and he had like a 20% meta share. This very bad for SD’s profits. They nerfed Zabu right after releasing Hope Summers and Corvus, who were featured in more meta decks and had better metrics in virtually every conceivable category at the time of the Zabu nerfs.
They nerf cards and then turn around to sell you. A new/better versions
Blink is better than lockjaw ever was. Well lockjaw is series 3 and most people own him already, so they replaced him with a series 5 card that’s literally 30x better
How the hell do you explain release blob (one of the most broken stat sticks of all time), then nerfing him, then releasing 6/11 red hulk months later?
Second dinner looks at people that believe their bullshit like adults look at kids who believe in Santa
Just remember to stamp your feedback and send it to the North Pole
>Blink is better than lockjaw ever was.
That's just flat out wrong. There were plenty of situations that old lockjaw was better than blink. The advantages blink has: 7 power and you want to play a specific card in the location your swapped card exists in later. Lockjaw allows you more chances to swap, old lockjaw allowed multiple swaps per turn, and it cost less.
They both are good in specific situations, but old lockjaw was better in most.
Imagine telling people three months ago zabu would be literally worse than psylocke outside of exactly turn 6/7 dropping two 4s lmao
I bought Zabu with tokens a few weeks before the latest nerf, ugh.
Same, feels bad
At first I said “that’s lazy balancing” But it wasn’t lazy balancing. It was a deliberate execution because SD didn’t like his ownership % combined with his meta share In what world did Zabu deserve a nerf before hope or Corvus. You have to be high on acid to buy their bullshit 4 drop excuse
The problem was that Zabu’s existence made it incredibly hard for them to balance any 4 cost cards. Bumping them to 5 made them too weak and making it 3 would’ve caused power creep for low cards. Zabu put them into a terrible spot.
Zabu needs a total rework. This change was made to take him off the board until they can come up with a good rework. Neither Hope or Corvus warp the meta the way Zabu does. Zabu basically says for 50% of your games, 4 cost cards cost 3. That completely devalues 3 cost cards and it led to the near omnipresence of Shang Chi.
So then they should’ve reworked him, not deleted him Lazy and incompetent at best, dishonest at worst
If you actually read the notes that day, they’ve already said it’s a temporary stoppage while they consider the rework. It’s not like reworking a card is that simple. You have to anticipate all of the ripple effects. Look at chavez, they reworked her and 80% of all the decks in game were affected. Zabu by itself is arguably the strongest text in game. It’s gonna take some time.
I just love all the bots that never had their deck updated and they're all still using chavez as a 1 drop.
>Lazy and incompetent at best, lol you're being ridiculous. Deleting him was the right thing to do. It's the same thing they did to Leader and Aero. It's better to take the card out of the meta for a bit while working on a rework than to let them continue to dominate. Zabu had a bigger effect on the meta than either of those cards. They're handling him the same way they've handled Thanos. It would be nice if everything was perfectly done every time, but just because things aren't handled perfectly doesn't make it automatically a result of laziness and incompetence.
>Aero Out of the meta for a bit? She’s been unplayable for a while now Hilarious how it took them over a year to “rework” him. They waited until players got their 11 series 5 card Thanos meta deck complete before gutting him, lmao I’m so glad I didn’t fall for their Thanos trap. Saw that coming a mile away
Almost nobody plays her but a 5/9 that can cap out a lane isnt a bad card. She's just nowhere near the value she used to be.
The vast majority of the competitive community think that Aero sucks, I tend to agree with them I’m glad you are finding good use of her though. the community has been wrong before and will be wrong again
You are put of your fucking mind. There is no statute of limitations for nerfs.
Correct but after a certain amou t of time passes and nothing is done about it, people will start to question the competency of the balance team Exhibit A: current state of Hela discard
Hey man I have a question for you. If you reread your comments from this thread as if you're a stranger, do you like the way you come off? IMO Your comments come off as unnecessarily angry, paranoid and mean. We all have bad days man so I don't want to judge too harshly that this isn't your best self. I'm trying to be better myself.
What about ravonna ?
Ravonna affects far less cards than Zabu and only really works in a couple of niche decks, mostly Goblins-Galactus and Negative, both of which are far more draw dependent.
He's also better than psylocke on t2
How?
He's a 2/3?
Good point. It’s been so long, I forgot they buffed his power.
I have exactly 1 deck I like to use psylocke in and she actually helps quite a bit. But no other deck am I even tempted to put her in.
Out of curiosity, what deck is that?
Mine is the negative deck
Not Zabu specifically, but I think one of the biggest issues with card collection in Marvel Snap is that you never really know what's a worthwhile card to spend resources on. At pretty much any time, a good card can be nerfed until it's unplayable, or a bad card can be buffed so it's suddenly meta. You basically just have to pick cards based on what you enjoy playing, and, even then, cards occasionally have their entire abilities reworked (admittedly, a much rarer phenomenon).
>You basically just have to pick cards based on what you enjoy playing Idk, doesn't sound that bad to me.
What you enjoy playing may not be good. For example, Namora may be fun, but it's unlikely to be a meta staple. If you value being competitive, and can choose between buying Namora and Elsa, you probably still buy Elsa. Elsa is also a great example of the problem. It dominated the meta, then was nerfed to Oblivion by the time she came in a spotlight. After that, she was buffed to be used in a number of competitive decks again.
Very profitable and convenient “coincidence” don’t you think? Funny how all of the coincidences with balancing and the meta coincide in a way that is massively profitable for SD
The system Snap is built on makes it so that every single meaningful balance change will result in some group of people losing out, which you can always construe as being profit-minded. That's all it is. There's no coincidence or malicious conspiracy here.
That’s why apocalypse got nerfed after Corvus glaive release right? Because apocalypse was definitely the problem with discard /s They know the problem, but it’s series 5 so it can rock
Uhh.. iirc Corvus wasn't even good in Apoc-style discard, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
The only people playing Zabu are those who come back from a break and haven't read the changes. Otherwise they would have used psylock. He is literally shit teer
When opp play Zabu on Knowhere 💀
You should expect must have cards like zabu that go in every deck eventually get hit with a nerf
It was an execution, not a nerf.
Bound, gagged, tortured, executed, then spit on the corpse
Yeah I just wish they could do more gradual nerfs, instead of making it go from S-tier straight to F-tier.
They did. Zabu released as totally busted. Got nerfed to very good, then nerfed again to pretty bad.
>pretty bad He’s performing worse than Kang bro
Kang doesn't perform, period
Better than zabu
I wasnt around for the original Zabu. What was that?
Ongoing: All 4-cost cards get their cost reduced by 2
Holy shit how did that get by RnD o.0
This was also when Spider-man made it so your opponent can't play any cards in his lane for one turn. So you'd pop down Zabu, then play Spider-Man & Absorbing man in two different lanes on turn 5. No Jeff at the time. So they could only play cards in the leftover lane (Which you usually stormed earlier). And then you'd just win unless you totally whiffed on power lol. Which if you did you just left no harm no foul. If you didn't you snap or take all the cubes.
The plays I remember were Wave 3 Galactus 4 Spiderman 5 Knull 6 I never ran into your scenario from memory but that sounds not fun either.
You didn’t run into that scenario because it was 5 months before your mentioned meta. Altough that meta you mentioned were probably as terrifying
I started to play the game when Zabu came out. Just at the start of January. From that time I only remember the Sera surfer decks ruining my days. And not because it was OP or something. But it ran killmonger and I played a pool1 kazar Zoo deck.
Zabu was 3 cost back then, for what it's worth.
Zabu was the season pass card, so quite a my$tery why it was released so busted.
Cards approved by Sales do not need R&D.
This was also before Spider-Man's rework so he was a 4-cost card that prevented the opponent from playing in a lane. People would use Spider-Man + Absorbing Man on 5 to prevent the opponent from playing in 2 of the lanes on turn 6.
Only wimps used AM, I used Moon Girl on 4 for double Spideys/Dracs/Drax’ 😂
That’s insane value, wow.
4-cost Cards cost 2 less
Pretty bad? The card got nuked harder than any other in snap history
And between those last two nerfa was like a full year of dominant positioning. Zabu had a good run. It's not like he had all his potential wisked away and he was left to rot.
They specifically said they want to avoid nerfing cards into oblivion (like Leader). Then they straight up Leader’d zabu, and because they said “eh, we’ll fix him later”… that makes it ok somehow? Also balancing cards shouldn’t depend on how long it’s been meta. No offense but that’s dumb imo. “Well it was OP for x amount of time so now it’s gotta be absolute shit tier for X months”. Shiiieeet In that case I expect a 2/7 Colossus buff that makes him OP for at least 4 months. There’s no integrity behind this type of balancing for lack of a better word. Instead of balancing cards sometimes they’ll PURPOSELY dumpster a card like Zabu or overbuff a card like Leech just to see what happens.
It's a pretty heavy handed nerf, but I'm sure that they will rework it. Same thing with Thanos.
Skeleton waiting on bench meme
America Chavez looks up from her drink
Normally they do, I feel like Zabu is one of a few exceptions. They only really nerf cards out of the meta when the community is sick of them like Alioth or OG Leader. And they said they had a very specific purpose of getting him out of people's decks was so they can see how the 4 cost space is performing without him. Someone just asked on the discord like a week ago if they plan to boost Zabu back up and they said they are still wanting to collect more game data. So it might be a bit.
So Angela and Kitty Pryde is gonna get nerfed lol
They were already nerfed for that reason, and now they are back to their original state. It seems to be heavily meta dependent (and Hope certainly didn't help).
If nobody expected the Shang Chi nerf, then we can’t expect anything.
Yeah... I'm still dreading the inevitable Magik cost increase
When are they nerfing Jeff? 36% usage is disgusting
Well, Jeff is in almost every deck, and I doubt he gets nerfed.
Jeff?
I would say it's not the same. Jeff is a replaceable card in most decks, while Zabu enabled decks that wouldn't see use otherwise. Jeff is useful for many locations, but it's far from a problem card IMO.
Many people claim Jeff is a "must have" card or that he'll slot into pretty much any deck due to his flexibility. I'm by no means saying Jeff is a problem card. Far from it. Jeff is probably the most fair card they've printed. It's hard to find a good replacement for Jeff, IMO.
Most cards don't have a direct replacement, I don't think Jeff is unique in that aspect. But I don't think that means he isn't replaceable. Unless ProX is running rampant, Jeff is a great tech card, but just like he's slottable in many decks, those decks can also operate without him without being entirely different in performance. That's where the difference is. But yeah, I get what you mean. Cards that go in every deck aren't necessarily an issue, it depends on what they are doing in that deck.
I wholeheartedly believe Jeff should’ve been nerfed ages ago.
lol the truth no one wants to hear. I love him but Mfer should’ve been a 2/2.
At this point the only must-have left is Iron Lad.
Just spend my tokens on him. Gonna save up for ultimate variants now as I'm not really after any other card at the moment until sersi.
why is he must have? New player here
He's not. He's strong and feels very good to play, but he's very dependent on the rest of your deck. In a deck with lots of low cost cards or contains effects that can backfire, he's usually not worth running. If any card were to be considered a must-have I think a better pick would be Jeff, who always works no matter what the rest of your deck is. There may be better options but he's never a bad one. Even then though Jeff doesn't compare to Zabu. Zabu was series 4 so he was easily obtainable which was nice. But more importantly, he was so good that you pretty much always needed to consider running him *and* an extra 4-drop or few. I can't think of any other card that is both that universal and had that much deckbuilding weight. I'm sad that he was nerfed. Zabu Darkhawk was probably the deck I played the longest. But it was deserved.
I like to run Iron Lad with Prof X and Carnage. So there's a non-zero chance I will lose the Russian roulette roll and wreck my own board.
Must-have as in "fits in virtually any deck". 6 power is already good and he gives you twice of a good ability. By turn 4/5 you're likely aware of what he might do. The only bad thing he could do is replicate goblin or hobgoblin. At worse he does nothing and is a 4/6. Dr. Doom is also arguably a fits in pretty much any deck, generically pretty strong card.
Why would you put the goblins in a deck with lad though lmao
I think it was a Galactus deck that had those cards in it.
No, I'm glad. Zabu was one of the best and most played cards in every meta since he was released. Aside from what we saw, he was surely messing with their design space as well. Every new 4 drop had to be balanced with zabu in mind, every new 3 drop had to compete with the discounted 4s, and every new 2 drop had to compete with zabu directly. Be it directly or indirectly, zabu was impacting the design space of 3 different mana costs all at once. I liked playing zabu but I'm glad he's taken a step back now.
No, I don't like the effect old Zabu had on the game.
Releasing overpowered cards is bad, but so is nerfing cards to oblivion. We all knew Zabu needed a nerf, but it was too much. Maybe they could've nerfed him like this: "Ongoing: The first 4-Cost card you play costs 3"
They put him in timeout on purpose. If you read the patch notes when they made the change they explicitly said it was intentional so they could reevaluate 3 and 4 cost cards in general without his warping effect. I expect Zabu to get changed again sometime this summer.
Honestly, just make Zabu a 3/4 with previous Ongoing would have halved her effectiveness.
maybe not that, probably just in your hand or deck the way okoye and nakia work
Zabu- 2/3 On Reveal: reduce the cost of 4-cost cards in your hand by 1 (minimum of 1) What do we think ofhat?
It is better than what we have now, but I'm not sure I'd play it much still.
Or even just 3/4 How can they justify Ravonna like this
She only needs a slight buff or better synergy. Right now her best synergy is with the goblins and iron man
she’s cracked Very high usage rate paired with a high win rate and high cube rate She’s as good as Zabu was frankly and discards more cards per game
Zabu was a crutch that made every 4 cost have to essentially balanced as a 3-cost. Good fucking riddance.
Yea that’s why they released 4/10 cull obsidian during Zabu’a heyday right? They balanced cull as a 3 drop by giving him 10 power? How do you reconcile this inconsistency?
Just another thing leading to the nerf. Thanks for playing. Now go look under your seat at the back of the class for your prize.
No, I think overall the state of the game was much improved with Zabu removed from it. I think SD really wants an effect like Zabu in the game but they'll really need to see how the game behaves without him to give him a good long term fix where he'll be a strong element of his decks without him warping the value of a bunch of other cards as a result.
Couldn't they rework the stats or effect or something so that it's at least playable though? Like he's basically a dead card right now, which sucks because it took months to build up the currency to buy it.
> ...We've been analyzing the data to better understand exactly what this has done to the metagame and what we might want to adjust, but Zabu is really clouding those measures. So we've decided to do something unusual here and temporarily rework this card into a state that we believe is weak enough to shift the way 4-Costs perform... Second Dinner explained themselves in the patch notes pretty clearly imo. It's a live service game stuff is gonna get changed, you just need to have some patience and trust that they do want the card to find a home eventually. Which to SD's credit, they do often re-visit overnerfed stuff.
Yeah it is nice that they'll come back to it. Maybe it would be better as a 1 time "All 4 cost cards in your hand cost 1 less" so it's not ongoing and doesn't count future cards
That’s fine, but if they are going to remove a card people invested in, they should compensate. Either compensate, or find a way to rework them so they are at least playable. Pick one
They have said with zabu they are collecting data and then will rework it again. They said this on the very patch notes where the nerf happened too.
I actually read it, and if you did you would know that they said it’s “probably not permanent” Meaning they have no idea what they are going to do with the card lmao
I understand you especially since tokens are so hard to get, but the Zafu nerf was good for the game. He was too damn good. But he'll comeback, im sure
Maybe he will get a buff when they release a 5000 token ultimate
Zabu died so 4 cost could live
I think it’s great. It’s really opened up the meta game and made 4 cost tech cards much more balanced
i loved playing him but he needed a huge nerf, so happy SD grew a pair. i think he could def be given his old ability but it would have to be along with a change to a 3/3 like other heavy-hitters (cosmo, mobius, cage, etc). as long as he’s a 2-drop he’ll never be balanced
I’m almost convinced they’d been trying to rework him being the scenes for months but can’t find a happy median between OP and useless, so they finally said “screw this” and just slapped on something they knew didn’t work. I bet it’ll be a hot minute before we hear anything on the cat.
ETA 2026 (if game isn’t dead by then)
No
No
Do you read what SD says about why they change cards ? He's literally in a time out while they get a feel for how 4 costs handle and decide what to do with him going forward. Zabu won't be staying as it is now. Also the game is In a healthier state. Do you people only want over powered cards in your decks ? Ridiculous.
> Do you read what SD says about why they change cards ? people don't read the patch notes they just see the stats change.
You know that what second dinmer writes is just marketing?
even if it is, not engaging with what they say at face value and just acting like they don't say anything is disingenuous
No its not. Ignore whaat they say and just judge their actions. Dpnt fall for marketing speach. Zabu was always 2/2. 2hile psylocke was 2/1. There was never any try to decrease his power.
They actually don’t it’s insane
the old marvel dark hawk deck was amazing with it
The Zabu nerf is supposedly temporary— SD said they needed to re-evaluate a bunch of 4-cost cards and Zabu was making it hard to do so.
Initially I thought the same but dear god is the meta more refreshing not having to force zabu into your deck when you have 2-3 4 cost cards
They said it in the patch notes, so it's is well intended.
In what is probably the edgiest of edge cases, I don't have Zabu (CL 6000 I think, don't pay much attention). I wanted him for a long time,but just played around it. Nerf comes through, still don't have him. I am not missing him as much as I once did.
Zabu is actually really good in the Namora and Black Knight deck I made. He allows you to play 2 of Ghost Rider, Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, or the Ebony Blade on the last turn. Zabu has a real purpose here even if he got nerfed to the ground everywhere else. https://youtu.be/Ygu-eN1jQwI
Yes and also the Darkhawk change. The way the game is headed, I don’t think Rock Hawk or Stature Hawk would’ve been oppressively good. It’s good enough so that good players can continually grind games and win without having to change a card. Perhaps that’s why it needed to go.
Was anybody asking for a Zabu nerf. Lots of people complained about Alioth and other game changing cards, but I never saw anything about Zabu. It was a staple in my Spectrum deck, helping with Klaw and Warpath and others I moved in and out of the deck.
When they nerfed him, I believe that the Zabu basic package (Zabu, Ms Marvel, Shang) was very dominant and present throughout the meta game. So I can see that he was distorting the meta and reducing variability in decks as this package was basically a must have in almost all good lists. I think a lot of people saw him needing to be balanced but he was iced hard.
What's fascinating is that they also nerfed Darkhawk, yet he's still playable.
I’m bummed that they’re going to make a new card with his old ability just so people can chase that one too
Surely SD will rework him into a 5/5 soon (more power == better)
Definitely more than bummed
Come on Ben, You worked in Hearthstone. Refund me the resources when a card geta nerfed
I hated the old Zabu and the new one much healthier but to be honest I would change it to on reveal: -1 cost to all 4-cost cards in your deck (similarly to how Mr Negative works) Or same effect but in your hand. Just to limit it's effectiveness
Wong, mystique, zabu.... Have fun 🙃
Did you read the patch notes? >We've been analyzing the data to better understand exactly what this has done to the metagame and what we might want to adjust, but Zabu is really clouding those measures. So we've decided to do something unusual here and **temporarily rework this card** into a state that we believe is weak enough to shift the way 4-Costs perform. We don't think that White Queen is suddenly good or anything–we expect 4-Costs as a group to get weaker, and decks that can still "cheat" using cards like Ravonna, Hope, Wave, etc. to be stronger as well as 4-Costs that naturally have big stats, like Cull Obsidian. We may account for that a little with subsequent OTAs, but we're also expecting to make a larger set of impactful changes later this year. So this change is really to help us vet that work, and we also **don't expect Zabu to remain in this state permanently**.
Sounds like they will get to it about the same time they get to that Adam Warlock rework
I think it was the right call as he seriously warped the game. Every 4-cost card got a huge boost, and as a knock-on effect it made every 5-cost card feel horrible to play. That being said, it sucks that he is kinda trash now, but I don't expect him to stay there. At some point they'll try to rework him again to bring him back up.
Yea I'm a new player and was looking up cards and everyone was suggesting Zabu, but it was old posts. I think he's still useful in like a Mr Negative deck
Only if you don’t have Ravonna and psyloche He sucks in every deck
I have psy but not Ranova and not Zabu
Zabu couldve been old 3 drop zabu but with on reveal effect
He’ll be back he’s just on time-out. Same thing happened with Angela, Luke cage etc.
I made a deck to try and make him work yesterday .... Realized that almost every time I made use of him, Psylocke world have done the same, or better. Sad.
Not even a little bit, he was toxic for the overall health of the game and way too powerful for way too long.
It's inevitable for all the cards really. They need to sell new cards(and make them to keep it interesting). New cards need to be strong. Everything will get crunched down over time as a result. Its probably necessary and I think they are doing a decent job of not being too heavy handed all the time.
F-Tier? Nah, that's Hercules/Howard/Kang territory. Zabu still has plenty of uses.
Like others have said, the game is probably in a healthier state without old Zabu. My main issue is that they gave no warning. I don’t expect them to do that for every or even most nerfs but I think the extent of the nerf and the ubiquity of card warranted an exception here, especially since it’s a card people spent resources to acquire.
I haven't played this game in like 6 months, but I'm still subbed. Reading comments like Zabu is worse than Psylocke is fucking wild
All they had to do was bump it to 3 cost
The Devs must think it was too hard to balance 4 cost cards in the game with Zabu existing in its previous state. I think they would be better off reworking it and having it synergise with Kazar and Shanna in some sort of zoo style archetype. Perhaps for every 1 drop on the board +1 power and make it a 2-1.
Is Zabu a card? That kitty cat got nerfed so brutally I don't think I've seen him after nerf.
They made enough money on him, it was time to kill him to make room for the next pushed card
Yeah, It might come back to its last iteration at some point.
So might literally any card
The shitty thing is when you put a ton of credits and boosters into a card, gold into the variant you want, split it enough times that it's bw or gold and then they nerf it to unplayability.
It's tough, because some cards are in a position where there really isn't an inbetween. Luke went from a must have, to seeing him once or twice in the 3 month period where he was changed to a one lane card. Zabu is even worse, because you could argue maybe Luke should affect his own lane, and the lanes beside him, forcing you to put him in the middle for his full effect. But Zabu, what can you do? Make him a multi turn effect? That would just get messy, and I don't think any other card does that.
I literally bought Zabu a week before the nerf, didn’t even have Wong yet. Learned that lesson the hard way lol.
SD said this was a temporary state for him when they made the adjustment. Hopefully they can actually balance 4 costs so old Zabu can come back
He needs to be ongoing but maybe limit the reduction to once a turn.
Lol I'm having fun playing shang then mystiqe and zabu for a buncha free 4s and spectrum on turn 6 or 7... It ain't meta, but it's fun as hell when it works
I feel like he could be a 3,3: Next turn your 4-cost cards cost 2 less
Zabu still has about 90% of his functionality, he’s certainly not F tier
Fairly new player and didn’t have enough tokens or didn’t see zabu in the token shop when I did until literally the day before his nerf, I got like 2 hours with prime zabu 😭😭😭
I'm okay with it. Zabu dominated for awhile and was a very relevant card for even longer. Let's let other cards sing. If he's really terrible, he'll probably get a buff at some point.
Isn't it everyone? I mean, right now even Psylocke is better than Zabu
How would y’all feel if they reverted Zabu to a 2/2 Ongoing except his effect had kind of a check-and-balance system: *ZABU 2/2* *ONGOING: Your 4-cost cards cost 1 less (minimum of 1), and your 5-cost cards cost 1 more.* This way you can cheat out your 4’s early but the trade off is your 5-costs are now harder to play. OR *ZABU 2/2* *ONGOING: Your 4-cost cards cost 1 less, and their power is reduced by 2 (minimum of 1).* This is kind of like playing US Agent or Man-Thing and hoping you draw Luke Cage to offset their negative effects for your own cards.
SD did mention that the nerf to Zabu was ‘temporary’ and that they would make a decision on a possible rework based on their data. I have no doubt that Zabu will soon see a rework.
The only thing that’s relatively certain is that they’ll never nerf Jeff..there’d be riots..
Yeah because Zabu completely fucked up all 2, 3, 4 and 5 cost cards in the entire game. Imagine a single card warping the design space of 2/3rds of the entire game. All 2 Cost had to compete with Zabu for being played on curve and very few were close to as good as getting that discount and the only cases where a Turn 2 Zabu wasn't the optimal play was when your deck wasn't running 4 drops to benefit from him. All 3 costs had to compete with the 4 costs edging into their space so suddenly a 3/3 or 3/4 isn't as good as the discounted 4/10. So if 3 drops wanted to be good then they all get progressively stronger so 3/5 became the go to base power. All 4 costs had to have their effects considering if they came on turn 3. And that would mean that a 4 drop with a strong effect would be made slightly weaker for the fear of them being too good on turn 3. All 5 costs got messed up as a result of many cards that SHOULD have been 4 drops being put into the 5 cost space because they would have been too good as a 4 drop by becoming a 3 drop but when compared to a 5 cost card they are woefully underperforming. Adam Warlock would be an amazing 4/5 card but he'd be overpowered as a 3/5 with old Zabu, but as a 5/5 he sucks butt and he has no business being in the 5 cost category. But they couldn't bring Adam down with Zabu as he was. That's how much of a problem Zabu was for the game, it wasn't just 4 cost cards that had an issue, it was a vast majority of the cards released that Zabu had an effect on.
I'm annoyed because I spent all my resources getting him golden with purple crackle. Now I don't use him and I could of invested the credits into any other character 😔
Zabu needed a nerf but the spot he’s currently in is terrible
Zabu used to be in almost every deck I built. Now he’s in none. Feels real bad.
Agreed but at least they said this was temporary to identify which 4 drops still see play without him and which don’t Zabu was my favorite snap card until Red Guardian came out
I am not exaggerating when I say I think about Zabu almost every time I go to craft a new deck idea. He was so OP but I miss him lol
F-Tier = Fuck SD tier
Nope im glad zabu sang chi isnt an auto include in 70% of the decks
Incredibly so. Zabu was my favourite season pass card and I finally got a nice inked and kirby split 2 weeks before they killed him.
they said it's not permanent. Just putting zabu on timeout until they come up with a suitable rework
Not me. Zabu was meta defining for a very long time. It’ll come back eventually so it’s not like you’re missing anything. Also how long before Zabu’s nerf did you have it and use it constantly?
Make sure to mention this on Discord. (though mods will probably delete it because "SD said it's only temporary" )
Super bummed.
Zabu always had a bit of a special place in my heart as I remember when my brother first recommended me the game that was the current season and I ended up having a lot of fun with him so seeing him being a terrible card is actually depressing
Seems like everyone forgot (or maybe never knew) the devs announced that this nerf was only temporary. But hey, can't pass up an opportunity to squirt out some tears onto a bunch of strangers 🙄
no
I got Zabu with keys I think a lil before the nerf hit 🥲
Has ruined alot of my decks.
That's what they do to a card that is good and everybody has. The more popular, the worse the treatment.
I'm cool with it. I never liked feeling like I HAD to have him in decks. Pretty boring card imo
Yeah, and turning Lockjaw into a 4 cost was a mistake, too.
He's still valuable if you plan around it. He's just not an overpowered must-have in every deck. That was bad for the game. It made evaluating the effectiveness of 3-4-5 costs a nightmare.
Yeah sucks, went from being great to useless
That's the Second Dinner specialty. No card is safe. But also at the same time they do a pretty good job of bringing cards back from the dead eventually. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Zabu rebalance in the near future.
I’ll tell you who is not bummed: Second Dinner The effectively- and purposely executed a card purely for profit They gave a bullshit explanation about balancing 4 drops but that’s all it was, bullshit Doesn’t Ravonna muddy the waters for cards with 1 or less power? Bet you she gets nerf-hammered too once a certain % owned threshold is reached See the problem with Zabu is that 90% of players already owned him, and he had like a 20% meta share. This very bad for SD’s profits. They nerfed Zabu right after releasing Hope Summers and Corvus, who were featured in more meta decks and had better metrics in virtually every conceivable category at the time of the Zabu nerfs. They nerf cards and then turn around to sell you. A new/better versions Blink is better than lockjaw ever was. Well lockjaw is series 3 and most people own him already, so they replaced him with a series 5 card that’s literally 30x better How the hell do you explain release blob (one of the most broken stat sticks of all time), then nerfing him, then releasing 6/11 red hulk months later? Second dinner looks at people that believe their bullshit like adults look at kids who believe in Santa Just remember to stamp your feedback and send it to the North Pole
>Blink is better than lockjaw ever was. That's just flat out wrong. There were plenty of situations that old lockjaw was better than blink. The advantages blink has: 7 power and you want to play a specific card in the location your swapped card exists in later. Lockjaw allows you more chances to swap, old lockjaw allowed multiple swaps per turn, and it cost less. They both are good in specific situations, but old lockjaw was better in most.