OTA Changes 09/14: The Collect0r

Its another week of light balance updates, remaking, nerfing and simple reworks. As expected, the recent Collector+Loki combo is going to get a slight change, though we have to see how much it'll actually affect the meta. First of all, the official info:

The Collector

[Old] 2/2 - When a card enters your hand from anywhere (except your deck), +1 Power

[Change] 2/2 -> 2/0

Taneleer Tivan, better known by the above moniker, has become the primary Power carry in virtually every Loki-based deck. We're sure he'll still fill that role well with this change, but this should help other decks build boards that at least threaten to compete with him. It's a ding to his use in other decks, but that was already pretty low, and Loki will ensure he always has one or more homes available. This change also makes him more vulnerable to a few counters, such as…

Shadow King

[Old] 3/3 - On Reveal: Set all cards here to their original base Power. [Change] 3/3 -> 2/3

The recent surge in Shuri and The Collector has been good news for Shadow King, who is seeing play despite being relatively inefficient and occasionally reliant on revealing last. We decided to take a similar approach here to what we did successfully for Luke Cage and Invisible Woman, boosting his base rate to a level that players can justify playing in a wider range of strategies than Silver Surfer and Cerebro. We expect this will also relieve some of the pressure on Shang-Chi by diversifying the ways in which players can counter huge amounts of Power.

Lady Sif

[Old] 3/4 - On Reveal: Discard the highest-cost card from your hand. [Change] 3/4 -> 3/5

Lady Sif is one of those cards that's always been solid and had a home in a couple specific decks, most obviously Apocalypse, Hela, and Agatha. However, her individual performance hasn't been stellar, and when a lynchpin card for so many decks isn’t doing well, we like to poke at that a bit. We don't feel this will upend the metagame or anything, but pushing some medium-performance decks towards some time under the sun is one of the things we like to do via OTA, so let's try it out here.

Spider-Ham

[Old] 2/2 - On Reveal: On Reveal: Transform the leftmost card in your opponent's hand into a Pig, keeping its Power and Cost.

[Change] 2/2 -> 1/1

We suspected the change in last week's patch might be damaging to Spider-Ham's usage, but we weren't sure–probably something like 65% sure, but that's a fair amount of doubt. Given we had an OTA coming just one week later, we decided to launch the patch with his 2/2 stats, then buff to 1/1 if that week indicated he needed the help. It did, so here we are.

Black Cat

[Old] 3/7 - If you end the turn with this in your hand, discard it.

[Change] 3/7 -> 4/9

Black Cat's been one of our weaker-performing cards for a long time. That might not be something we can fix with an OTA, but we've played with this version enough ourselves to at least be interested in seeing what develops, especially with a couple future cards forthcoming. Yes, this makes you more likely to discard her than play her, but the only decks interested in Black Cat were already assuming you'd be doing that. Increasing her Power makes that a better perk, and the number 9 is especially apt for the feline femme fatale.

Much like The Collector, a Spider-Ham change was expected after the harsh nerfs the card has been dealt with. Although unsatisfying to me personally, I feel like this will be its new niche, a somewhat thoughtless play to eliminate 1 card from the opponent's deck.

Though I am surprised by both Sif and Black Cat's minor buffs. I had no idea Felicia was so underwhelming - though to be fair I rarely see 'pure' Discard decks nowadays; They often have a Tribunal/Onslaught/Iron Man combo, or the meatiest 6 Cost cards alongside Hela and Modok.

So that's going to be our playground for a couple of weeks. Thoughts?