At this point, I’ve now played more Marvel Snap than I have of my last digital card game obsession, Hearthstone. Since getting into it last November, I’ve clocked at least a half-hour every day — sometimes more — with Second Dinner’s excellent card battler, and I’m not even close to being bored with it yet.
I’m not the most amazing player out there, but I win more often than I lose, I have a rather expansive collection of cards (and variants, avatars, and titles), and I finish each season pretty handily. I still learn something new from various players in our quick (3-5 minute) matches, and I have a lot of fun playing around with different deck builds.
So you’ll pardon my geekery today if I gush a bit about six things that continue to give me goosebumps of delight while playing Marvel Snap.
The theming
As the first word of its title implies, Marvel Snap is saturated in the massive superhero culture of this popular franchise. And instead of going the lazy route of drawing from the movies, this is clearly a game styled after the many comic book series out there. From the art to the flavor text to the fun animations that cards sometimes trigger, it all feels so superhero-like in Marvel’s distinct technicolor way.
Second Dinner has done a great job pairing up certain hero cards with abilities that feel related. My Cyclops (with the High Evolutionary card in the deck) blasts other cards’ powers with his optic rays, Professor X shuts down lanes entirely with mind control, Squirrel Girl unleashes little furry helpers all over the place, and Doctor Doom summons in his trusty Doombots for a turn-six assist.
This game could’ve been set in any franchise, I suppose, but Marvel suits it almost too perfectly. Custom teams of superheroes and supervillains battling across the cosmos elevates cards and spur-of-the-moment math into something more.
The reward system
You know what I appreciate most about Marvel Snap? That the game never comes across as trying to bilk me. So many card games revolve around the business model of selling little sealed decks for you to gamble your money on. This game? This game gives you free booster cards each and every match even if you lose. You can accrue a rather nice collection for absolutely free, which makes one feel more amenable to shelling out a few bucks for a season pass or special bundle.
Marvel Snap is constantly throwing free stuff your way. Every day I get a handful of upgrade credits, and usually I’ll unlock one or two collector’s chests during a play session. These contain either a new card, card variant, credits, tokens, gold, avatar, or title. I’ve been slowly collecting enough tokens to buy that pinned 6,000-token Jeff the Land Shark card that I’ve been coveting.
Yes, there’s some psychological pressure to buy into the seasonal passes for the signature card (which you’ll otherwise have to wait down the line to get) and other goodies, but it’s not overwhelming.
The customization
There are a lot of ways that you can approach Marvel Snap. Some are very much into the meta scene and want to sprint to Infinite every month before the reset. But some are out to simply have a good time and experiment with playing the game that makes them feel the most satisfied.
The genius of this game is that it caters to both. There are endless ways you can customize your 12-card decks, especially if you’re the type that likes to experiment with different card interactions to see if you can crack open a combo that nobody will see coming. Some players like to wield thematic decks full of variants, or based on a particular comic line, or revolving around certain keywords.
I have about seven decks that I rotate through in my daily matches. Each one I’ve been refining to work in certain ways, from my mutually boosting Ongoing deck to my denial deck to my Patriot zoo deck. They’re all fun in their own way, and getting to choose my card back, avatar, and title means that I get to show off a bit of individual flair for my opponent before we get down to business.
The pace of the matches
You simply can tell that Marvel Snap’s gameplay was refined to a T before it launched. I’m still marveling (no pun intended) over the simpler, streamlined design. Six turns, 12 cards, three lanes, 12 slots on each side of the board. Energy cost and power points. Gradually unveiling lanes and increasing energy supply. That’s pretty much it, and it works in a way that feels tight and structured.
I think it’s perfect that matches are just a few minutes apiece. It’s very time-friendly and takes the sting out of losing, since it doesn’t represent the loss of a half-hour of effort. Six rounds is enough for a whole lot to happen, but it’s not so much time that players can ramp up into ridiculous combos that take minutes to resolve.
The shifting battleground
And while we Marvel Snap players tend to moan about seeing certain hated lanes come up, I can’t complain that much about the whole design of lanes. On the contrary, I think they’re the secret sauce that makes this game work as well as it does. A 12-card deck would play out more or less the same on a standard battlefield, but once you’re introducing shifting rules with each game, you have to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Being able to adapt and work with the lane rules is the key to winning many games. Sometimes they represent amazing opportunities (such as cloning a card three more times or giving you a +5 energy boost on turn 1), and sometimes they’re serious obstacles that need to be overcome (or ignored). But they are never, ever boring.
The community chatter
It’s also been a blast spectating on the general discussion of the game on Reddit and other forums. People adore sharing strategies and showing off and (perhaps more than anything else) moaning about stuff they don’t like. I got a huge laugh out of the day that High Evolutionary was supposed to release and Second Dinner held it back for a short delay, because that meant that the Reddit became flooded with dozens upon dozens of related memes and images. It was a mutual bonding moment.
And the morphing meta means that there’s always something in this game to discuss. Yes, we all hate Galactus, and seeing others whine about him makes that last game you lost to him less aggravating. New balance patch? Everyone’s all atwitter about what it means for certain decks. It’s good fun from a fan perspective.
I do hope that we’ll get guilds in the game at some point, because it would be nice to have social interactions that go beyond using the Ms. Marvel emote to flip people off. But until then, I’ll still enjoy a good round of Marvel Snap with that stranger from across the world — win or lose.
There’s an MMO born every day, and every game is someone’s favorite. Why I Play is the column in which the Massively OP staff members kick back and reminisce about all their favorite MMOs. Whether it’s the new hotness or an old fan favorite loaded with nostalgia, each title we cover here tugs at our heartstrings and keeps us coming back for more.
