A Starter Guide on How to Play 'MARVEL SNAP'

The award-winning mobile and PC game MARVEL SNAP continues to keep things fresh and engaging by adding new cards and mechanics to its fast-paced gameplay. This month of October also marks the one-year anniversary since the launch of MARVEL SNAP, with the game reaching new heights and showing no signs of down as it pits the Marvel Universe’s most iconic heroes and villains against each other in card-based confrontations across familiar Marvel locations. Since its launch, MARVEL SNAP has been named the Best Mobile Game of 2022 by The Game Awards, D.I.C.E., and Destructoid and recognized as one of the best games of 2022 overall by Polygon, Digital Trends, and GameSpot.

To help new players get introduced to MARVEL SNAP or for veteran players to help refine their game, here is a complete guide on how to get started with the game and get its basic strategies down. With over a thousand variations between cards and locations, there is enough to make each game of MARVEL SNAP feel completely unique, boasting simple mechanics, yet a rich depth of gameplay to keep players coming back for more.

Basic Game Mechanics

MARVEL SNAP is a card-based game that has players assemble decks and battle for control over three different locations, each with their own unique properties. Whoever controls at least two locations after six turns—in some special conditions, seven turns—wins the battle and are awarded accordingly. Control over locations is judged on which player has the most Power over it, with each card affecting Power accumulation based on where they are based and their individual abilities.

Cards

Each player assembles a deck of 12 cards and each card carries its own Energy cost and Power value. Energy costs range from 1-6, with players gaining Energy each turn, from 1 Energy in the first turn to 6 Energy in the sixth turn. Many cards have their own abilities, either with ongoing effects or abilities that are activated upon being revealed.

Below are several example of character cards and abilities:

Decks

When assembling decks, it’s important not only to keep in mind how many of each Energy cost are available, to make sure few turns go without any cards played at all, but also how the cards can strategically be used to benefit each other. Cards like Spectrum can boost all played cards that have ongoing effects while others, like Ka-Zar, can boost all played cards that have a 1 Energy cost. Players can build multiple decks to see how well they operate and try out their decks against a computer opponent in Test Deck Mode in the deck-building mode.

Locations

Every battle unfolds across three locations and, like the cards, they have their own properties that drastically affect how gameplay unfolds. The three locations are initially hidden before being revealed across the first three turns from left-to-right, with whatever properties they’re capable of taking effect upon reveal. Properties range from restricting what types of cards can be played at certain locations to adding or destroying cards in players’ decks for the battle. Just like with how the cards play off each other, it is very important to develop strategy on each of the locations given their properties.

Several examples of locations in MARVEL SNAP are below:

Game Modes

MARVEL SNAP currently has three different game modes available: Ranked Battle, Friendly Battle, and Conquest Mode.

Ranked Battle is the standard gameplay mode for Marvel SNAP, with randomly matched players vying for control of three different locations, usually across six turns, drawing from decks chosen by the players before the start of matchmaking. After the completion of each game, players are returned to the main menu rather than engaging in a rematch, and are awarded cubes affecting season ranking and booster points for their character cards.

Friendly Battle operates largely like a mix between Ranked Battle and Conquest Mode, with players able to challenge their friends in a match. Each player is given a health bar divided into 10 segments, with cubes won or lost affecting the health bar rather than the season ranking. Whoever has their health bar depleted completely across a series of individual games loses the Friendly Battle overall.

Conquest Mode requires silver, gold tickets, or infinity tickets or gold bars to play, which can either be won in the Proving Grounds or purchased with crowns in the Medal Shop. Like Friendly Battles, players are given a health bar and play a series of games against a randomly selected opponent, with the cubes won or lost from each game affecting the health bar. Gold Conquest represents a higher tier of Conquest Mode players while the Infinity Conquest is the highest tier.

Playing on PC

After several months of early access, MARVEL SNAP came to PC, significantly expanding the game’s player base and the award-winning action. Mobile players can sync their accounts to the PC version of the game, carrying over their individual progress, including cards and decks, or players can start fresh and create a new account. From there, players can dive right into MARVEL SNAP as they pit their favorite Marvel heroes and villains against other players while building their card collections and season rankings.

Gameplay on PC is largely the same as the gameplay on mobile platforms, with the same types of cards, locations, and game modes available to the PC version. What the PC version brings is an immersive widescreen format capturing Marvel SNAP in all its glory, along with mouse functionality as opposed to mobile devices relying on touchscreens. This makes MARVEL SNAP feel like a fresh experience, even for the most veteran players on mobile platforms, and well worth checking out for longtime fans and those curious about the game alike.

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