In the middle of last year the Marvel Snap card game was launched on the market, at the time I let it go and it wasn’t until a few months ago that I found myself involved in this new universe of superheroes and villains. Where does your addiction lie?
the bases were already
Before going into detail about my personal taste for Marvel Snap You have to consider two basic points for your success. The first is that the card game was developed by the Second Dinner studio. Perhaps the name does not ring a bell and it is that in reality the study only has a single title at the moment, which is the one that concerns us in this note. But none of this matters because within their ranks are Ben Brode, Yong Woo and Hamilton Chu. These three members were part of Team 5 (the Blizzard team in charge of developing hearthstone). And everyone already knows how successful it is hearthstone among lovers of card games.
On the other hand, just saying Marvel is very eye-opening. The number of stories and characters from the universe that started in the comics led to merchandising, TV series, video games, animated films and the successful MCU or Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Letters and Marvel? Like I didn’t think of it before…
DC and Marvel video games are not always well received. Either because the expectation is very high and the products do not end up convincing or because their fans are very detailed. Titles like the trilogy of Batman: Arkham or the spider-man from Insomniac Games come to stomp on the market; respecting the original work but also doing what a game has to achieve… be fun or innovative. Although on the other hand there were other recent projects that were not that successful: Gotham Knights either Marvel’s Avengers.
Looking for card games I realized that no one had thought of making a game about their franchise on a large scale and with the support of Marvel.
If there are several boards and real cards such as: Marvel Champions: The Card Game, Smash Up: Marvel, Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game and 5-Minute Marvel (in this note you will find details of the four). But to be honest, being in a country like Argentina, these games are very difficult to find, not to mention the costs they have. One option, before you get to Marvel Snapare the mods Tabletop Simulator on Steam where you can play any tabletop game.
Now if we talk about Marvel Snap.
One deck to rule them all
The game begins with a series of cards of classic Marvel characters such as the Punisher, Ant-Man, Quicksilver and the Hulk. We have to build a hand of 14 cards. At the beginning you may have few but this changes the more you play. Like titles like hearthstone each card has an energy cost and a power cost. Like some specific skill. And I want to stop here.
My first impression with some letters from Marvel Snap it was that they all felt the same and maybe at first the same thing happened to you. But after unlocking multiple cards I realized that I was wrong. Even the abilities of each hero or villain are more faithful than other adaptations of these characters.
Once in the game, there are three positions or locations where the players place up to 4 cards per place. You have to add more points in two lines to win. Or, failing that, if each one wins a line and there is a third tie, all the power points of the game are added up and the one with the most wins.
Locations should not be taken lightly, some produce reactions in the cards we play, taking away or adding points, destroying cards; etc
For my part, one of the most addictive attractions of Marvel Snap It was that the games are generally short. There is a time for each turn and when you least expect it, in half an hour you played 15 games.
When the game was in early access, the developers released the famous loot boxes where you could get not only cosmetics but also special cards. Luckily this pay to win model was not well received and when Marvel Snap sack its final version was withdrawn. But how do we get new cards? Playing a lot.
Each game gives us cosmic cubes to raise our Collection Level. If we press “Snap” during the game we can get up to 4 cubes. Within this section we can find cards, credit, gold and enhancers. The latter are specific to each card and improve frames or visual aspects of each one. At the end of each game they also randomly give us points to achieve this.
From collection level 500 we get collector chests that can contain the same thing as we said before but the tokens are added. Special coins to “buy” cards that rotate every 8 hours in the store.
Season passes, story and missions
Marvel Snap It does not escape the modern gaming model but it does so without falling into micropayments. The season pass has two models, one free and the other paid. The premium is available for 10 dollars and unlocks cosmetic improvements and some cards… but Lucho, didn’t you tell me that it was not necessary to pay to have cards? The point is that these cards can be found randomly at the end of the season. For example, if this season “Into the Quantum Realm” they wanted to unlock MODOK without paying; Tomorrow the new season “Days of Future Past” begins and you can get it by opening a random chest.
Each season has missions that give us experience points for season passes and credit. These work as a “story mode” although it is noted that this section could have more details of each season. Especially since the development diaries that anticipate each event count for more than the game itself.
Gotta catch ’em all
A card game may have the best playability but not be visually appealing. Fortunately Marvel Snap It takes the company’s comics as a reference and recreates them in amazing decks.
Each card has several variants (including one in Pixel-Art format) and the designs really take us back to comics. It even happened to me to see some models of mutants X Men emulating the classic series of the 90s.
For all this, it will happen to you that you will want to collect the more than 200 cards that are in the game. Of course, everything is a matter of time and a bit of chance. Many have been playing since October 2022 and do not have some cards like Thanos or Spider-Man. But patience, at first I couldn’t complete a deck of mutants and now I have too many characters. In a few months playing every day I have more than 100 cards.
The future of Marvel Snap
Months after its final release, Marvel Snap still has a ways to go compared to hearthstone. He needs to improve the balance of his confrontations, launch the custom battles mode and better strengthen the story of each of his seasons. His games are simple and addictive. And as long as they keep adding cards, they’re going to conquer the world of Marvel in cards.