To ensure you have the best chances of success in Marvel Snap, there are various tips and tricks to give you the upper hand as you begin your card-collecting journey.
This page acts as a comprehensive breakdown of some of the best things to keep in mind as you play against opponents and assemble your ever-growing team.
advertisement
Marvel Snap Tips and Tricks
Looking for something specific? Click one of the links below to jump to…
Use Gold Wisely
Gold is a premium currency in Marvel Snap, and can be earned from the following sources:
On both the free and paid Season Pass tracks Completing Weekly Challenges (visible at the top of the Missions tab) Purchasable via the in-game store Occasional gifts from the dev team in your Inbox Ranked rewards
Though there are a number of ways to acquire Gold, unless you are spending money on a consistent basis, your supply will be sparsely updated. As such, you’ll want to use it as efficiently as possible. The most cost-effective way of spending Gold is on Daily Mission refreshes once you have completed those that naturally arrived. Refreshing costs 120 for 2 missions.
advertisement
Completing both the easy and hard mission will earn you 150 Credits and 75 Season Pass XP. Comparatively, you can purchase 150 Credits in the Store for 120 Gold, but gain no Season Pass XP in the process. It’s recommended you don’t spend Gold on Credits/Card Variants in the Store unless you really like the Variant, or don’t have time to play and complete missions.
Don’t Overcommit On A Location Early
When you begin your journey in Marvel Snap, it can be tempting to play a card or two per turn in the same location. Whilst this should obviously be the case for synergistic cards, trying to bulk up a location to ensure victory (particularly if your opponent isn’t actively competing at that location), means that you are leaving yourself fully vulnerable to being outmatched at the other two locations.
It’s often best (depending on your deck) to play the first few turns across all 3 locations, strategically deducing where your opponent will be contesting for, and then using the final few turns of the game to bolster areas where you are already ahead, or sneakily play a high-power card/effect on the last turn to swing the location back in your favor.
Save Your Credits
Early on in Marvel Snap, the most important aspect to upgrade is your Collection Level, as this is your method for unlocking new cards. Credits upgrade the cards you already have, and therefore you’ll need them to progress. It can be tempting to push every Credit you have into upgrading a card you love, advancing high into the upgrade tiers.
advertisement
Do not do this! Particularly early in your gameplay experience, new cards will come quickly via the Collection Level track, and each time you upgrade a card the resources required quickly escalate for less than impressive returns. The breakdown is as follows:
Uncommon – 25 Credits, 5 Boosters, 1 Collection Level unlocked Rare – 100 Credits, 10 Boosters, 2 Collection Levels unlocked Epic – 200 Credits, 20 Boosters, 4 Collection Levels unlocked Ultra – 400 Credits, 40 Boosters, 8 Collection Levels unlocked Infinity – 500 Credits, 50 Boosters, 10 Collections Levels unlocked
As the rewards for progressive upgrades don’t scale according to the cost increase, it’s better to climb the earlier ranks of the Collection Level by sticking to Uncommon and Rare upgrades for cards, unlocking the next card, playing with it to earn Boosters, upgrading it to Uncommon/Rare, and so on.
Tailor Your Deck
As your Collection Level grows and you gain access to a large number of new cards, you’ll want to begin to tinker with your deck to optimize your output within each game. Have a lot of On Reveal cards? Begin to construct your deck toward an Odin finisher. Like using Ongoing effects? Think about which cards in your Collection would best utilize the buff of an Onslaught. Have access to a lot of 1 Cost cards? That Kazaar in your Collection looks perfect to buff them up!
Pay Attention to Featured/New Locations
Featured Locations are often brand-new Locations that are added to the game, and have an increased chance of appearing in every single game, with the percentage chance set to around 40%. These will appear on the home page of Marvel Snap, so check back often.
advertisement
This bonus remains active for 48 hours after their debut and will return to the standard Location pool with normal appearance likelihood rates after. As such, you can capitalize on the Featured Location and its effect by building a deck to use specifically during those 48 hours. If your deck can take full advantage of that location, you are likely to have an upper hand in comparison to your opponent. Be careful though, as your opponent could just as likely have built a deck (or a counter deck) to that location!
Snap Smartly
Snapping is a key mechanic of Marvel Snap (the clue is in the name!), and will become particularly relevant as you get further into your gameplay experience. You can snap to double the potential rank rewards of the game if you are feeling confident that you will win, but you can equally snap to play mind games with your opponent, even if you are falling behind. This is incredibly risky, but if your opponent doesn’t take the bait and retreat, you can do so the following turn for minimal losses.
Study Your Opponents Plays
This may seem like an obvious one, but be sure to pay attention to the cards that your opponent is playing against you. This is for a couple of reasons; one being that you may encounter cards you’ve never seen before, or more importantly, cards that you already know and may possess that are being used in a way you hadn’t considered. Coupling a card with a specific Location, or synergizing with another card that you hadn’t thought of is a great way to learn new and exciting strategies!
Ties Can Be Best
advertisement
Whilst your goal in a game of Marvel Snap is to win 2 out of the 3 Locations, sometimes you can’t quite manage that. If you are winning one Location, contesting another, and outright losing the third, sometimes it is smarter to aim for the Location you are losing (if you can match the power they have there), as the opponent may be more likely to try and win the Location you are both contesting. Doing this can often lead to stealing the win from underneath your opponent.
In Marvel Snap, ties resolve by determining how has the greatest power difference in the other Locations than those that are tied. The table below demonstrates a tie that would result in a victory for you; the opponent is leading by 5 points at Location 1, there is a tie at Location 2, and you are ahead by 10 points at Location 3:
Opponent
431211Location 1
Location 2
Location 3
381221You
Risk An Unrevealed Location
On each of the first 3 turns of any game of Marvel Snap, a new Location is revealed. Whilst some players like to play safe and only place cards on revealed locations that they know the effects of, sometimes it can be worth taking a risk early on and placing a card on an unrevealed Location.
If the Location is something like Sanctum Sanctorum (Cards can’t be played here), or The Danger Room (Cards played here have a 25% chance of being destroyed), then you can gain an immediate advantage, or even secure a victory in some cases. This has an equal chance of backfiring of course, but the risk might just be worth it!
Understand Card Pools
advertisement
Something that isn’t clearly signposted in the game is the concept of Card Pools. This is intrinsically linked to your Collection Level, as there are thresholds on the Collection Level Track that, once reached, will unlock access to a new pool of cards to unlock. The thresholds for each of the 3 Pools are as follows:
Pool 1 – Level 18 to Level 214 (46 Cards) Pool 2 – Level 222 to Level 474 (25 Cards) Pool 3 – Level 486+ (74 Cards)
All the cards you earn within these pools will be the same, but the order in which you receive them from the Collection Level Track will be random for each player.
Lean Into (Or Away From) RNG
Some of the fun of digital card games is the crazy RNG randomness that is allowed to take place. It leads to innovative card design, and can lead to unpredictable outcomes in your matches. Whilst this can be fun, some players prefer to use a deck that is consistent and they know exactly what the cards will do. If this is you, lean away from cards that have random effects (generating cards in hand, copying opponents cards, etc) and curate your deck accordingly. Or fully lean into the craziness and see what happens!
Save The Smallest For Last
Playing cards on curve each turn is understandably the norm for most players and is desirable to ensure you don’t lose too much ground in the power race for control of each Location. What can be particularly worthwhile though is saving some smaller, low-cost cards (that you could throw out early on) for the final turn to disrupt something that the opponent is surefire on.
A perfect example is Elektra. Being a 1-Cost card that destroys a 1-Cost Card on your opponent’s side of the board, you can wait until they have fully locked up a Location with cards (to bolster their Ant-Man perhaps), and then play Elektra on Turn 6 alongside some other cards in other locations to tip the power balance and truly take your opponent by surprise.
advertisement
Keep An Eye On Who Has Priority
Not only does the order in which you play your cards matter to properly synergize effects and combos, you’ll also need to keep an eye on who has reveal priority from turn to turn. This is decided by who is currently winning the match. If you have more power in more Locations compared to your opponent, your cards will be revealed first. At the beginning of the game, it is a 50/50 coin toss as to who will reveal first on the first turn. This will be denoted by a gold glowing outline around either your or the opponent’s nametag.
You can actually strategize with this, as certain On Reveal effects in particular will definitely favor you revealing second. Elektra is a perfect example. Revealing first on turn 1 playing Elektra will do nothing, but revealing second on turn 1 with Elektra, you might be able to destroy the opponent’s Ant-Man, Quicksilver, Rocket Raccoon, or even their own attempt at Elektra!
Don’t Be Afraid To Retreat Early
It’s never too early to retreat in Marvel Snap! Drawing all your high cost cards and can’t play anything, turn after turn? Locations being revealed that completely invalidate your deck, or actively improve your opponents? It can often be worth swallowing your pride and dropping out as early as possible to minimize the amount of Cosmic Cubes you lose.
Whilst 2 will be lost at the end of the game without either player snapping, if your opponent catches wind of the idea that you’re falling behind, they will likely jump on the opportunity to snap. Retreat out of the game at this point to ensure you lose (and they steal) as little as possible, and you can maintain your ranking position better!
advertisement
Play Bad Cards To Progress
Hitting the point in the game where your Collection Level progress slows down? Whilst you might have to sacrifice a few Ranks to do so, it can be worth the sacrifice to play a sub-optimal deck with cards that you haven’t upgraded at all yet.
Create a deck that you rotate new cards into (that you might not decide to naturally use otherwise), and play with it to quickly earn enough Boosters to level multiple cards multiple rarity levels, and climb the Collection Level Track as fast as possible!
Play Illogically
Marvel Snap is a game about playing mind-games. Because the parameters within which each and every game is set, you can often interpret what the opponent is going to do; based on the Locations in any given match, the cards they have played so far, and the types of meta decks you’re seeing recurringly during your playtime.
Whilst you don’t necessarily have to include wildcard cards in your deck that wouldn’t normally fit to throw your opponent off, it can be worth playing illogically if it means you can ensure victory. Playing a Hawkeye in one Location on Turn 1 gives your opponent an indication you’ll play a follow-up card in the same spot next turn. Though you’ll miss out on the buff to Hawkeye, it can often be worth forgoing that to bait your opponent into counter-playing at that Location. Their Star-Lord or Groot will be a far weaker card taking up a space in that Location because you didn’t follow the expected rules of playing any given card.
Don’t Get FOMO
advertisement
Whilst the allure of the paid Season Pass can be inviting, paying around $10 a month can become expensive fast. If you know you’ll be playing a lot every month and enjoy the game, then the investment might be worth it to get additional rewards. But don’t think that you’ll need to buy in or you’ll miss out.
The Symbiote Invasion Season Pass for example features Miles Morales locked at Level 1. What you might not know is that he and other Variant cards featured in the Season Pass will enter the F2P Reward Pools 2 months after the Season Pass expires, meaning all content will eventually come to the game and be accessible for free (with a hefty time investment of course). Purchase into a particular Season Pass if the rewards are of particular interest to you, but don’t worry if you skip one and are worried you’ll never see those goodies again.
If All Else Fails, Kazoo
If you are a player brand new to card games, and just can’t quite get to grips with the keywords and special effects of many cards, there is still a deck for you that performs relatively well and doesn’t have any overly flashy gameplans to keep in mind.
Kazar
You have a number of 1-Cost cards available from the get-go, and an additional few with come early in the Collection Level Track, alongside one specific card that is the cornerstone of the deck: Kazar. Kazar buffs all 1-Cost cards with an additional +1 Power. Whilst many people playing the game will understand this is your gameplan relatively early on as you play multiple 1-drops, often they can’t react in a reasonable manner. There are counters for 1-drops, specifically Killmonger, but he is unlocked much later in the Collection Track and therefore you won’t matchmake against players owning him for a long time.
Looking for more? Check out our Onslaught Build Guide for a duo of decks that pack a powerful punch regardless of how much playtime in Marvel Snap you might have!
advertisement
Up Next: How to Get New Cards
Was this guide helpful?
Leave feedback
In This Wiki Guide
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Trailer
Super-Hero partners Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) return to continue their adventures as Ant-Man and the Wasp. Together, with Hope’s parents Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), the family finds themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that will push them beyond the limits of what they thought was possible. Jonathan Majors joins the adventure as Kang. The movie is produced by Kevin Feige and Stephen Broussard. Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, directed by Peyton Reed, opens in theaters on February 17, 2023.
11 Marvel Snap Tips That Will Help You Win & Get Cards Fast!
Marvel Snap is the game everyone is talking about and we wanted to give you 11 Marvel Snap Tips that will help you win more often, and acquire new cards faster. Some of these are Marvel Snap Beginner Tips, but a few will help you strategize your card upgrades, and explain a few ways you could win in a pinch. The Marvel Snap global release date is here and we can’t stop playing.
Dune: Awakening Reveal Trailer
Take your place in the fight for Arrakis in Dune: Awakening, an open world survival MMO set in the sci-fi world of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Source: news.google.com