Patch Notes - June 04, 2024

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven’t updated your game yet, get the latest in the App Store!

ASSET RE-DOWNLOAD

Included in this patch will be performance upgrades that will improve boot-up and download times. However, in order to implement these game-wide changes, it will require a full re-download.You can manually download all assets in “Settings” and hit “Download All Assets”. While the asset re-download is happening you will see temporary performance issues that will be solved once the download is complete. We appreciate your patience!

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

Card Series Drops

As a quick refresher, Cards are categorized into different “Series” which affect their things like their drop rate and Collector’s Token values. Periodically, cards will drop to lower series so players can more easily add them to their collections.

• Drop to Series 3
  • Howard the Duck
  • Silver Samurai
  • Mirage
  • Echo
  • Martyr

• Drop to Series 4
  • Jean Grey
  • Selene
  • Hercules
  • Nebula
  • Silk
  • The Living Tribunal
  • Gladiator

Move Update

Cards staged to move during a player's turn will now resolve before cards reveal. Some examples of affected cards and locations include Nightcrawler, Cloak, and New York. Learn more about this change below in Balance Updates.

FEATURES

• Collectible Borders are now available in the Cosmetics Shop at a discount. You can also now own multiple copies at a time.
• Performance Improvements - Faster boot-up times, download times, and asset optimization.
• The Collection Level Road has been modified to no longer have a cap!

ART & VISUAL EFFECTS

• The following cards received VFX:
  • Ebony Blade (Black Knight)
  • Beast

• The following cards received updated VFX based on their new abilities:
  • Space Stone
  • Soul Stone

• After being made aware of issues around the Gambit Variant in the "Dealing with Demons" bundle we're swapping it out with the new X-Men '97 #1 Tyler Kirkham Gambit Variant. We greatly appreciate those who brought this to our attention and we'll continue to work on improving our processes to ensure issues like these are few and far between.

AUDIO

• The following cards received SFX:
  • Ebony Blade (Black Knight)
  • Beast

• The following cards received new voice lines: (EN, CN, FR, ID, JP, KR, ES, TH)
  • Venom
  • Hawkeye

BALANCE UPDATES

Thanos Stone Updates

We've significantly updated the Infinity Stones to revolve around Thanos, as promised in a past patch. Our goal with this complement of changes is to position Thanos in such a way that the deck is less effective at becoming a shell for the strongest ramp-based strategies, as has been common in the past. We want to give Thanos decks their own distinct identity and to better fulfill the fantasy of aligning oneself with the Mad Titan.We are also aware of concerns that Spider-Ham can be too frustrating a counter to this strategy, as Thanos starts on the left side of the player's hand. If necessary, we'll adjust the Ham to a functionality that is less disruptive.

• Sanctuary II - Location Disabled

 

• Mind Stone
  • [Old] 2/1 - On Reveal: Draw 2 1-Cost cards from your deck.
  • [New] 2/1 - On Reveal: Draw 2 Stones from your deck.

Part of this set of changes does mean abandoning design space we'd previously been interested to explore–distributing Infinity Stones with other game pieces. Our internal testing actually discovered that these designs were less exciting to many playtesters than they were to the internal design group, leading to other cards already changing. In fact, Black Swan at one point was summoning random Infinity Stones, but had to change for that very reason. As such, we're returning Mind Stone to its previous Stone-specific function to better support Thanos.

• Reality Stone
  • [Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Transform this location into a new one. Draw a card.
  • [New] 1/1 - On Reveal: Replace this location with a new one.

• Soul Stone
  • [Old] 1/1 - Ongoing: Enemy cards here have -1 Power.
  • [New] 1/1 - On Reveal: Draw a card. Ongoing: Thanos can't be discarded or destroyed.

We've kept the cards drawn by all six Stones the same, shuffling a draw from Reality Stone to Soul Stone. This is because we want the Stones that risk having less effect drawing another Stone, and Reality Stone is a strong card on its own merits.

• Space Stone
  • [Old] 1/1 - Next turn, you can move one card to this location. Draw a card.
  • [New] 1/1 - On Reveal: Draw a card. Ongoing: Nothing can stop you from playing or moving Thanos.

• Time Stone
  • [Old] 1/1 - On Reveal: Give Thanos -1 Cost next turn. Draw a card.
  • [New] 1/1 - On Reveal: Give Thanos -1 Cost. Draw a card.

We've strengthened Time Stone–part of our approach in the first place was to ensure that we weakened the Thanos deck enough to release its grip on the metagame. With that goal achieved, we believe the combination of all of these changes will let us add a bit more strength to Time Stone in particular, so that it's more satisfying to play.

Move Update

As mentioned earlier in the patch notes, we've updated card movement made during the "staging" portion of the turn to resolve before any cards reveal. This affects cards like Vision, but has no impact at all on cards like Iron Fist and locations like Bifrost.We made this change to resolve a number of confusing interactions. First and foremost, this is when the cards visually update already, so it just makes sense to line the resolution up with the game state being represented. Second, this addresses some weirdness unique to Ongoing cards. For technical reasons, Ongoing cards have been built to temporarily turn off when they change locations, in part due to the way these cards can have location-specific abilities and VFX. In the past, you may have heard of some tricky move-based ways to Enchantress a Cosmo, or duck Shang-Chi with Devil Dinosaur–those won't work anymore.There will be a handful of other minor impacts to this change. However, a general guideline of "assume player-made moves will happen before everything else" should lead you to the best sequencing for your cards.

Bug Fixes

Card and Location Logic Fixes in 28.x

• Can now play to Super Skrull’s location when an opposing Jean Grey is in play
• Copies of Iron Lad with Jessica Jones’ ability no longer trigger more than once
• Miles Morales’ cost is now set appropriately after being affected by The Peak
• The power bonus of a card played on Krakoa is now accurately applied if the Reality Stone is played to that location on the same turn

VFX & SFX Fixes in 28.x

• Demon SFX no longer loops indefinitely after the card is dragged
• Fixed up some card upgrade VFX timing issues
• Sanctuary II has appropriate SFX (for real this time!)
• Patriot’s and The Hood’s VFX no longer play at unexpected times
• Some Cards played on Castle Zemo no longer take an exceptionally long time to swap

Other Fixes in 28.x

• Bonus Boosters and Daily Offer Shop UI elements no longer overlap if opened at the same time
• The album tag now scales appropriately in the Card Detail view in the Daily Offer Shop
• Adjusted text sizes in Thai that were previously too small.
• The bottom navigation bar now displays properly after initial startup
• Equip to All UI assets no longer overlap
• Transitioning from the post-match results back to the main menu no longer jitters
• If you think you saw a typo in the Future Villains album, no you didn’t
• League’s reward UI now properly fills the screen
• “Premium Mystery Variants” text is no longer missing in various places
• Albums UI is no longer obscured by background elements as you scroll

Existing Known Issues Fixed

• Claiming multiple rewards from your Collection Level simultaneously no longer results in an error
• SFX should play when retreating on Turn 1
• The text for “Mute” is no longer tiny and off-center from the button
• The “Spotlight” label now appears for cards in Card Detail view