Marvel Snap: Beginner’s Guide

Defend the Multiverse

Marvel Snap has taken the mobile gaming world by storm, winning Mobile Game of the Year at the 2022 Game Awards. The addictive strategy game features quick, easy-to-learn matches with characters and locations from the Marvel  Universe. Playing Marvel Snap feels like reliving the comics event Secret Wars—Variants of your favorite characters fighting to secure famous Marvel locations.

For the uninitiated, Marvel Snap is a 1v1 multiplayer collectible trading card game set in the Marvel Universe. Players build decks of 12 cards before carrying them into battle. The player that amasses the most power at two out of the three locations over (usually) six turns wins. Players receive one Energy (Marvel Snap’s version of Mana) to play cards each turn, increasing by one level each round. Locations are revealed once per round for the first three rounds. Either player can Snap by tapping the Cosmic Cube at the top of the map once per game, doubling the amount of Cosmic Cubes awarded to the winning player. At the end of the match, the winner collects the pool of Cosmic Cubes, which go toward earning Seasonal Ranked rewards levels. Games usually last around three minutes, making it convenient to play while waiting in line or during commercials.

Know Your Cards

Cards in Marvel Snap feature heroes or villains from Marvel’s wellspring of characters with stylistic variants from the industry’s top artists. Besides the gorgeous artwork, each card has an Energy cost and Power attribute displayed at the top of the card. A card’s Energy cost is the amount of your Energy pool required to play a card at a Location. You can find Energy costs in the upper left corner of the card, within the blue circle. Power values are found at the top right corner of the card, surrounded by an orange hexagon. This value represents the points you’ll receive for playing a card at a Location. Additionally, most cards boast a unique ability to aid the player in a match. These abilities are displayed in the center of the card, underneath the card’s artwork.

Cards are categorized into Pools (or Series) based on Collection Levels. All players start with the same cards, and gain access to new cards randomly by upgrading their existing cards, and gaining Collection Levels. Collection Levels are a rewards track that provides players with access to new cards, resources or variants of cards they’ve already unlocked. Second Dinner, Marvel Snap’s development team, unlocked new cards randomly to prevent players from dominating seasonal rankings with only the most powerful cards. This also encourages players to be creative in their deck builds. However, climbing the ranks can still be difficult, especially when you progress past the early card series.

Card Pools

There are currently five Card Pools (or Series) within Marvel Snap. Pool 1 consists of 46 cards, spanning Collection Levels 18 to 214. Pool 2 runs from Level 222 to Level 474, and has 25 cards. Collection Level rewards for these two Pools consist of either Mystery Cards, boosters or credits.

Pool 3 contains 74 cards, beginning at Collection Level 486. At level 500, the Collector’s Caches reward replaces the Mystery Card. Collector’s Caches have cards or resources, including gold, credits, Collector’s Tokens and boosters. Collector’s Caches are replaced with Collector’s Reserves at Level 1,000 and offer lower drop rates for Series 3 cards. In exchange, players have higher drop rates on cosmetics like rare avatars, variants and titles. Collector’s Reserves also reward players with slightly increased amounts of credits and gold. Series 4 & 5 cards are newer and much rarer. These cards have a slim chance of being a random pull from Collector’s Caches and Reserves. Cards from these Pools also appear in the Collector’s Token Shop for players to purchase.

As you upgrade your cards, I recommend stopping at the end of your current Pool, and waiting until you max out your credits (10,000) before progressing. Stopping just before the next Pool allows you to rank higher on the Seasonal rankings because you’ll only face players in your Pool. Remaining at the top of your current Pool means that you’ve unlocked all available cards, and can utilize the best deck strategies for that Pool. Progressing to the next Pool ensures that you’ll face players who have unlocked cards you haven’t, putting you at a disadvantage.

Upgrade Your Cards

You’ll need credit and booster resources to upgrade your cards in Marvel Snap. Credits are earned through Daily and Weekly missions, as well as from the Season Pass and the Season’s Ranked rewards. Your current balance can be found in the top left corner of your screen, represented by the rectangular blue icon.  Boosters are card-specific, and are found in random tiers of the Season Pass and Collector Levels. You also earn boosters at the end of each match; however, the boosters awarded are of a random card from the deck you used. Cards of lower rarity used in games have a higher chance of yielding boosters.

To upgrade your cards, go to the Collection tab and tap the card you wish to upgrade. You’ll know that a card is ready for upgrading when it’s surrounded by green energy and animated rising arrows. Tap the card, and then tap the Upgrade icon in the lower right corner displayed as a card with arrows. Finally, tap the purple button, which will display the number of credits and boosters needed to upgrade that card. Upgrades and requirements are as follows:

In addition to gaining Collector Levels, upgrading a card gives it a unique visual effect. Upgrading a card to Uncommon rarity creates a Frame Break, meaning that the card’s art extends beyond its border. Rare upgrades give a card a 3D effect, and Epic upgrades animate a card’s artwork. Legendary rarity upgrades add a shiny logo to a card. Ultra upgrades animate a card’s frame. When players upgrade a card to Infinity, they are rewarded with a copy of the card with a special effect. Special effects include foil backgrounds, sparkle effects and black and white art.

Season Pass

Each month, Marvel Snap features a new themed Season Pass. Since launch, Season Pass themes have included the Symbiote Invasion, Warriors of Wakanda, The Power Cosmic and Savage Land. The Season Pass functions as a Battle Pass with free and premium rewards. Springing for premium will cost players $9.99, but it gives them early access to cards and exclusive cosmetics. Premium players will also earn more resources than their free-to-play counterparts. Premium players who want a head start on their pass can purchase the Premium+ Pass for $14.99. This pass unlocks ten levels upon purchase. Both free and premium players have access to the Seasonal Caches (starting at level 51), which give players gold, credits or card variants.

Purchasing the Premium Pass is a good investment for those willing to part with the dough. The cosmetic perks, like exclusive titles, avatars, card backs and variants feel worth it. However, the best part of the pass is gaining access to the new card abilities before most players. These new cards eventually become available to unlock through Caches, Reserves and the Token Shop a couple of months after the Season ends, but who has time to wait? I’m still kicking myself for not buying the Silver Surfer’s premium pass.

Complete Daily and Weekly Missions

Marvel Snap provides plenty of opportunities for players to earn resources through daily, weekly and seasonal missions. You can view available missions by tapping the Missions tab at the top right corner of the Main screen. Every eight hours, two new daily missions appear on your dossier. When you complete a mission, you’ll receive credits and earn XP for the Season Pass rewards track. Regular missions give players 50 credits and 25 season pass XP, whereas Hard missions yield 100 credits and 50 Season Pass XP.

In addition to these rewards, each completed mission adds to your Weekly Challenge progress. The Weekly Challenge progression track awards increasing amounts of credits, gold and Season Pass XP every five missions completed. You’ll need to complete 25 daily missions to earn the total weekly challenge rewards. You can have up to six daily missions active at one time, at which point new missions will stop appearing. If you’ve completed all of your daily missions and need more, you can purchase two for 120 gold. I would caution against this, since missions appear frequently. Save that gold for Seasonal Bundles or maybe a can’t-live-without-it variant card.

You can earn extra Season Pass XP with weekly Season Pass Chapters that contain seven additional missions. Every Monday, a new Season Chapter is unlocked, revealing three available missions. Each day, a new Chapter mission opens when the game refreshes at 21:59 EST. Chapter missions remain available until the end of the Season. These missions won’t earn you credits or gold directly. Instead, you’ll receive more significant amounts of Season Pass XP. This XP goes solely towards unlocking rewards on the Season Pass rewards track. Each mission gives around 1,000 XP, and completing an entire chapter earns a whopping 2,500 XP.

Shop Till You Drop

The Shop tab offers players access to bundles, variants, credits and gold. It’s located in the lower left corner of the Main screen represented by a stack of gold bars. Upon entering the Shop, you’ll be presented with various Bundles. Bundles offer players cosmetics and resources in exchange for real-world currency or gold. Use discretion when buying Bundles, as the offerings are often overpriced for their rewards. However, Bundles that award players with Collector’s Tokens are an excellent purchase, as they are a precious resource.

Collector’s Tokens can be used to purchase cards players have yet to unlock under the Token Shop tab. Every eight hours, a new card missing from the player’s collection becomes available for purchase. You can pin the card, if you find yourself short on resources. However, new cards won’t appear unless the pinned card is purchased, unpinned or unlocked through Collector’s Caches or Reserves.

Players can also unlock variants of cards they already own through the Daily Offer tab at the top of the Shop menu. Six new variant cards appear each day when the game refreshes. Variants cost either 700 or 1,200 gold. Sometimes, variant prices can seem arbitrary, but overall, the more detailed a variant is, the higher the price tag. Unfortunately, variants cannot be pinned, so if you miss out on one, you’ll have to wait until it appears again or you unlock it. Variants can be obtained through Collection Level and Season Pass progression, as well as rewarded from the Season Ranking. So, even though the odds of unlocking your desired variant are slim, I’d save my gold for something more useful.

Building a Deck

Over the course of a match, your cards’ Energy, Power and abilities will change based on cards played by you or your opponent or Location effects. That’s why building a flexible 12-card deck that can withstand as many obstacles as possible is so important. Players should choose one or two cards with complimentary abilities to construct a deck around.

When building a deck, you should consider the five main ability types—On Reveal, Ongoing, Discard, Move and Destroy. These abilities are straightforward and do what they say on their boxes. On Reveal abilities trigger once the card is revealed during a turn. Cards with Ongoing abilities have an ability that continues unless silenced. Discard abilities discard cards from your hand when triggered. Cards with a Move ability allow players to move their cards to different Locations on the map. Finally, Destroy cards destroy other cards that have been played at a Location. There are also cards with no ability at all, which other cards can buff.

Go to the Collection tab (cards icon) at the bottom of your screen to build a deck. From there, tap the plus icon at the top of your cards. You can tap the deck’s title and change it at any point. You can also change your card’s backing, delete a deck, share your deck or paste a deck code here. To add cards, either tap the card and tap Add to Deck, or tap and hold a card until it appears. When building a deck, it’s essential to include cards with a variety of Energy costs. While it might seem like a good idea to have the most powerful cards, it usually isn’t. You likely won’t have the energy available to play them.

Beginner Deck Builds

Here are four of the most popular Marvel Snap decks for beginners. Some substitutions can be made, but try sticking as close to the build as possible until you unlock the next Pool/Series.

“Kazoo”

• Ant-Man
• Elektra
• Squirrel Girl
• Korg
• Nightcrawler
• Rocket Raccoon
• Angela
• Captain America
• Ka-Zar
• Blue Marvel
• Onslaught
• America Chavez

Critical Cards: Angela, Squirrel Girl, Ant-Man, Captain America, Ka-Zar, Blue Marvel and other one-cost cards

This deck relies on buffing one-cost cards with Ka-Zar’s Ongoing ability, and Blue Marvel or Onslaught in later turns. Angela, Ant-Man and Captain America act as nice supplemental multipliers at locations to build power quickly. America Chavez can also provide a sorely needed power boost to a location on turn 6.

“Devil’s Delight”

• Ant-Man
• Mantis
• Nightcrawler
• Cable
• Sentinel
• Cosmo
• Jessica Jones
• White Queen
• Iron Man
• Devil Dinosaur
• Onslaught
• America Chavez

Critical Cards: Mantis, Cable, Sentinel, White Queen and Devil Dinosaur

This deck is centered around the Ongoing Devil Dinosaur, which has a base power of 3 but gains +2 power for every card in your hand. That means to keep him well-fed, you’ll need cards that replenish your hand. Sentinel, Cable and the White Queen are all cards whose On-Reveal abilities add cards back to your hand. Should the Dino remain elusive, Onslaught, Iron Man or America Chavez can significantly boost your power.

“On Reveal Odin”

• Nightcrawler
• Rocket Raccoon
• Yondu
• Medusa
• Star-Lord
• Scarlet Witch
• Ironheart
• Enchantress
• Jessica Jones
• White Tiger
• Gamora
• Odin

Critical Cards: Ironheart, White Tiger, Gamora and Odin

This On Reveal deck depends on Odin for reactivating your cards’ abilities. However, if you play your cards strategically, a win can be eked out without him.

“America/Apocalypse Discard”

• Ant-Man
• Blade
• Hawkeye
• Nightcrawler
• Angela
• Medusa
• Lady Sif
• Sword Master
• Mister Fantastic
• Wolverine
• America Chavez
• Apocalypse

Critical Cards: America Chavez, Blade, Sword Master, Lady Sif, Apocalypse and Wolverine

This Discard deck is an excellent choice for newbies. America Chavez is a reliable alternative for a substantial boost of points on turn six. Her inclusion also guarantees that other more important cards will be available earlier. Furthermore, Lady Sif, Sword Master and Blade’s discard effects have a better opportunity to buff Apocalypse or pull Wolverine onto the map.

No matter what strategies or decks players choose, there’s always a new card to add or a combination to discover. That’s the beauty of Marvel Snap—it challenges players to innovate and be creative. Not to mention, there are so many cards and variants to collect that even The Collector would be jealous.