I don’t know what Marvel Snap is, but it was the first mobile game that made me a penny. once. It’s one of the few games that can do that.It took its place in my financial shame, while Warframe, League of Legendsand World of Warcraft. But how and why is this fairly simple card game managed?
For those of you who don’t know the current app is in a special corner of my phone’s home screen (and my battery is draining), Marvel Snap is a collectible card game. With a cast of Marvel characters with the right abilities and comic style, you’ll have to use everything you have to build a deck and battle other like-minded players. Besides being a great fan-service game, it replicates the childhood feeling of collecting and playing cards well. That’s what got me in.
You don’t get too many cards very often, and I’m sure that’s why I decided to empty my wallet. Really smart. You face other players first and discover cards as they knock them out. There’s this “oh, what’s that card” moment, like you’ll get when you play a new set of Magic or Game of Aces. It makes your brain shudder whether you want to know how perfect these cards are in your deck, or what combinations you can create. This guy is a loser, I can do more with that card.
So when you finally get that card randomly from your collection level rewards, you’ll naturally get excited, and you’ll immediately jump into your collection and tinker with it. My first time working with Moon Girl, I’ve seen her used with Devil Dinosaur to create a pair of Jurassic heavy hitters. It feels great to be able to see it in person, get the card, and do it yourself. This is the juice the game revolves around.
However, as savvy readers might think, the rate at which you get cards is starting to slow down. To get the collectible level, you need points. Points don’t get any slower, but card upgrades start to get more expensive. Eventually, the guaranteed card rewards will turn into more diverse reward boxes, offering tons of points — even gold! – Every now and then, but it reduces your chances of getting a new card.
You end up sticking with the cards you have for longer and your deck starts to solidify. In terms of gameplay, this works. At that point, you probably have enough resources to create at least one super-solid deck that works together. To me, it’s a Morbius discard deck with a bunch of common cards like Blade, Sword Master, and Apocalypse, plus some rare options like Moon Knight, Dracula, and Hell Cow for added value. It’s done well and ahd has gone through several makeovers over the past few weeks.
But that hunger is still there. Your deck can always be better, right? For me at least, this was when the temptation finally spilled over to the action and I bought the Premium Pass. Field service feeds the family. This gives me a bunch of extra cards, quality boosters, and card variants, which are all good…but the real bonus for me is the credits. The accumulation of points has allowed me to gain more upgrades, more levels, and more cards. The hook is firmly inserted.
I think the difference between Marvel Snap and Hearthstone is that a single card in Marvel Snap is actually more important. The deck size is 12, and every new card is infinitely possible. Your early decks may look good at the time, but you slowly realize that they are full of filler. Every upgrade is huge and has a huge impact on your deck, you start to clearly see the path to victory, you don’t get so many useless turns anymore, everything feels better. It’s diabolical.
I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m going to buy kapi. These are expensive and serve as a new pot to dump credits rather than a source of more money. Although, I might end up breaking out a nice collection of symbiotic variants. Why is Marvel Snap sneaking around my defenses? Maybe because you can’t buy levels or cards outright, the whole deal feels a little fairer, even though you can buy a battle pass with points that can be exchanged for collectible levels and new cards. I haven’t counted, maybe I’m being flushed here, but the whole thing feels more worthwhile than any other game I’ve played before. Much more than Genshin or Raid Shadow Legends.
I think in terms of games that are full of microtransactions, Marvel Snap may have just found a formula that fits easily into my pocket, and a lot of people have failed. I know I’m going to buy the next season pass and I don’t think I’ll be whaling – but maybe that’s what all future whales think in the first place. Maybe Marvel Snap let me down.
It looks like I’ll be able to drag friends into the same predicament soon, as the developers are working on letting you play with friends in Marvel Snap.
