Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started ‘Marvel Snap’

Since I have been playing Marvel Snap for approximately two days now, I am something of an expert. Well, not really. Not at all, in fact, but I think I’ve learned a few things to give new players some advice all the same, even though technically I am one myself. I know that my praise of Marvel Snap has gotten at least a few folks to try it out, and I want to make sure you don’t screw up your valuable early playtime.

So here are five things I wish I knew when I started Marvel Snap.

1. Do Not Spend Your Energy Currency On Card Upgrades In the Shop

This is the most important currency in the game, the little stack in the top left that looks like a little silver rupee from Zelda. This is what you will use to upgrade your cards to higher rarities, and while the shop will offer you “shortcuts” to hit the next level of cards, this is a trap. The currency is far more valuable when used and saved to upgrade your cards manually. You will have unlimited booster currency eventually but you will always be short on energy, which you only get from daily challenges, collection and battle pass tiers.

2. It Doesn’t Matter What You’re Upgrading

I know you may already be developing your favorite cards, but there is no point saving currency to upgrade only specific ones. By doing this, you are limiting how fast you get through collection tiers, and if you use a card a lot, you will be able to upgrade it eventually (only cards in a deck you are using will earn boosters from matches). If you have the currency, spend it on upgrades, even small ones. You really want to move through the collection tiers.

3. All The Cards Are Hiding In The Collection Tiers

I don’t think Marvel Snap does a great job of explaining how you get cards given that this is a game that does not have you buying card packs. Essentially 95% of cards are going to be coming from the Collection system where every four tiers, you will unlock a new card. These will be standard unlocks at first, then as you move into one of three pools, you will get a “mystery” random unlock from them, which will unlock cards within that pool in a random order to help you build out your decks. These are the pools:

• Pool 1 – Collection Level 18 to Level 214 (46 Cards)
• Pool 2 – Level 222 to Level 474 (25 Cards)
• Pool 3 – Level 486+ (74 Cards)

Within those, you will match against others with similarly sized collections to your own, which is how the game tries to balance its playerbase. So while you can spend cash in the shop for more energy currency for faster upgrades, while you will unlock more cards this way, you will eventually be put into higher tiers against harder players, mega grinders or big spenders.

4. Remember Your Mana Curve

This is not necessarily the case for every kind of deck, but a good general rule from the Hearthstone era carries over here, where you want a fairly smooth mana curve in order to have the best chance to maximize the power you have in a given turn. This usually means 2-3 cards for every energy level, 1-5, then generally speaking, one 6 power card, with exceptions for specialty decks. Cards that help with mana curve issues can be useful like Sentinel or America Chavez.

5. Gold Spending

Gold is the other major currency in the game, the “premium” currency you can buy directly, though you will end up earning a fair bit through normal play. You have two main options here.

1. If you care nothing about cosmetics, you can use it to buy energy directly for card upgrades. Again, this means more cards more quickly, but as ever, you will get pushed into a higher pool, so there’s not a huge need to rush.

2. Save the gold for when the store offers cool variants for your favorite cards. I guarantee you that you’re going to start developing favorite cards, and when you do, you may regret not having gold around to buy a neat visual variant for that card. I haven’t seen any that are good enough to spend for yet, but the store rotates daily and you can bet there are going to be tons of variants over time.

That’s my early advice, let me know if you have any other questions!

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