Marvel Snap's Loki balance patch — Loki nerfed, Agent 13 buffed, the Loki meta is finally over

Marvel Snap's Loki balance patch

Second Dinner shipped the Loki balance patch on July 30, ending the longest-running meta dominance in Marvel Snap's history. Loki, the 2-cost 3-power card that copies the text of the first card your opponent plays, has been the defining card of the season since the June 4 patch. The new changes:

What changed

Loki (Nerf)

Loki's text: "On Reveal: After your opponent plays their next card here, copy it."

Loki's new text: "On Reveal: After your opponent plays their next card here, copy it. Cost: increased by 1 each time you copy a card this game."

The cumulative cost increase is the key part. Where the old Loki would copy one card for free and then sit in your hand for 4-5 more turns generating free value, the new Loki costs +1 every time you trigger the copy, capping the upside at 2-3 copies per game instead of 5-6. The card is still playable in dedicated Loki decks; it's just no longer a "play Loki on curve and win" card.

Agent 13 (Buff)

Agent 13 was a 2-cost 2-power with "On Reveal: Add a random 4-cost card to your hand." The buff is a flat +2 power (now 2/4), and the card generation is upgraded: instead of a random 4-cost, you get a choice of three 4-costs. This makes Agent 13 a competitive alternative to the Wasp + Lockjaw shell that has dominated 2-cost slots in Bounce decks.

Blade, Wolverine, Wolfsbane (Buffs)

These three cards have been stuck in the "never played" tier for over a year. The buffs:

• Blade: Was 1-cost 2-power with "On Reveal: Discard a card from your hand." Now 1-cost 3-power, same text.
• Wolverine: Was 2-cost 2-power with "Regenerate: +2 power". Now 2-cost 3-power, same text.
• Wolfsbane: Was 2-cost 2-power with "On Reveal: +2 power if you have a 4-cost card in hand." Now 2-cost 3-power, same text.

All three are now stat-competitive. Whether they slot into a real archetype is the question — Bounce decks probably take Wolverine, and Onslaught decks might pick up Wolfsbane for the synergy with Sandman.

Sandman (Indirect Buff)

Sandman's text: "Ongoing: Cards cost 1 more. (0 Cost cards cost 0.)"

Sandman hasn't been changed, but with Loki nerfed, the "play everything for free" Loki shell is no longer the dominant strategy. Sandman decks — which shut down Loki by making copied cards cost 1+ more — were always a counter to Loki but were getting outvalued by the free cards Loki generated. With the cumulative cost increase, Sandman decks now have a real window to outvalue the Loki player.

What the meta looks like now

The three archetypes expected to dominate post-patch:

1. Sandman-Onslaught — the classic "play one big card, then buff it twice" shell. With Loki nerfed, this deck's weakness (can't keep up with Loki's free cards) is gone. Expect to see it rise from Tier 2 to Tier 1 within a week.
2. Bounce — Wasp / Lockjaw / Beast / Falcon / Hit-Monkey. The Agent 13 buff and Wolverine buff give the deck new 2-cost slots, and the deck was already a Tier 1 contender before the Loki meta took over.
3. Move — Spider-Man / Human Torch / Multiple Man / Heimdall. Was always strong; the Loki nerf doesn't change the deck but removes the bad matchup.

The two archetypes that lose:

• Loki — direct nerf. Still playable as a value engine in dedicated shells (Loki Collector, Loki Devil Dinosaur) but not the auto-pick it's been.
• Hela — was the second-best "big card" deck but the Loki nerf doesn't help it directly, and Sandman-Onslaught now occupies a similar slot with better matchups.

What the patch doesn't fix

• Leaning into the on-reveal archetype (since Loki was the original on-reveal payoff card, other on-reveal decks are now in question). Mystique and Wong got outclassed by Loki; with Loki weaker, they might come back, but they were never great to begin with.
• The Conquest ladder reward problem is unchanged. The Loki meta rewarded grinding the same deck for hours; the new meta is more varied but the Conquest reward is still keyed to wins, not to deck diversity.

The bigger picture

The Loki meta lasted 8 weeks. That's the longest a single card has dominated Marvel Snap since the game's launch. Second Dinner's response — a targeted nerf with secondary buffs to underused cards — is a much better patch than the alternative (a blanket Loki ban or a power-level reduction across the Loki shell). The cumulative cost increase is the most elegant fix I've seen in a card game: it doesn't delete the card, it makes the card fair, and it opens up counter-play that was previously impossible.