Marvel snap is a beautiful marriage of simplicity and complexity. It is easy in that winning is all about getting big numbers. It is complex because of the unmanageable number of possible combinations between all maps and locations of the game. For example, take the match below where I came up short with 689,754 power.
Yes, 689,754.
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This absurd outcome is thanks to the exponential interactions of the cards Odin, Wong, Black Panther, and Ironheart alongside Onslaught’s Citadel. Marvel Snap’s math can be hard to analyze when card combos like these melt the game’s calculations (and take about five years), but here’s my best memory of what happened.
After playing Odin on their last turn, each of their cards in that location will reactivate with “reveal” abilities, including Black Panther’s ability to double his current power and Ironheart’s power buff for random teammates. Then, because of Wong, abilities happen on face-up twice, so Black Panther and Iron Heart activate again. Then Black Panther and Iron Heart reactivate twice more each because of the Citadel of Onslaught, which causes running effects like Wongs to be doubled. In other words, a single use of Odin’s ability actually affects Black Panther four times due to Wong and Onslaught’s Citadel.
But that’s not all!
Odin’s ability also occurs on face-up, so Wong’s power (which is still boosted by Onslaught’s Citadel) applies to him as well. That means Odin does his thing a total of four times, every time this Black Panther and Iron Heart reactivations are multiplied four times.
It took one very It took Marvel Snap a long time to figure out all this math, and at a certain point the game seemed to give up calculating Black Panther’s true power. His power appears to be 689,730 at the end, but the gears were still turning and the numbers started to blur. But no matter what really happened, the fact of the matter is that I was completely and utterly defeated in that match – which is why it was also one of my favorite matches. These kinds of wild interactions are exactly what makes every match special Marvel snap so unpredictable and exciting.
