Marvel Snap is a fast-paced card battler set in the Marvel universe, where players compete for cosmic cubes in 1v1 battles. In this article, I'll break down how a game of Marvel Snap is played, what the mechanics are and why snapping is so important.
Game Overview
A single game consists of 6 turns (or 7, if Limbo (164) appears!), and every turn each player can simultaneously play one or many cards on any of the three available locations.
Each card has a power value that when played will contribute to the player's total power at the location where the card is placed. The winner is determined by the player who has the highest total power at two of the three locations.
Wait, but what's a snap I hear you ask? I'll get to that later, for now, let's delve into the basic mechanics.
Locations
The game board is made up of three locations; each has a unique ability that can drastically affect each player's strategy and where cards are played each turn. The game starts with only one location revealed, the second and third locations are revealed on turns two and three respectively. However, even if a location hasn't been revealed, players can still play cards on those locations.
A maximum of four cards can be played at any one location.
A full list of locations is available here.
Cards
There are over a hundred unique cards available in Marvel Snap, with more due to be released on a regular basis. Each card has up to three properties, which are:
- Energy Cost - the amount of energy required to play the card,
- Power - the value that the card contributes to the location's total power for each player
- Ability - an effect that the card has (although, not all cards have abilities)
Let's take a look at Forge (45) as an example, in the top-left hand corner it states that his Energy Cost is 2 and in the top-right hand corner his Power is 1, and underneath the card, it describes his ability.
Each card has variants with different card art, but all of the card's properties will be the same.
Come check out all of the cards available here!
Decks
There are 12 cards in a deck, and each card must be unique. That's it!
Why not have a look at the most popular decks here?
Match
At the beginning of a match, each player draws 3 cards from their deck and an additional card is drawn at the beginning of each turn. Players also receive energy at the start of their turn, on turn 1 they receive 1 energy, on turn 2 they receive 2 energy, and so on until turn 6. Players use energy to play cards, depending on the card's cost.
On the final turn, the winner is determined by the player who has the highest total power at two of the three locations.
Cosmic Cubes
The winner of a match receives cosmic cubes, these are used for competitive play to determine a player's rank. At the beginning of the game, there is 1 cosmic cube available to win, however, on the final turn the current number of cosmic cubes is doubled. The player who loses the match also loses the final number of cosmic cubes that were in play.
Feeling confident about winning? Then it's time to SNAP!
Snap
Throughout the match, each player can decide to snap once to double the number of cosmic cubes available to win (or lose). If both players snap then the maximum number of cosmic cubes can be 8 (because of the final turn doubling effect).
Retreat
Are you not confident about winning the game? Has your opponent raised the stakes by snapping? Perhaps it's time to retreat. Each player can retreat from the match, losing the current number of cosmic cubes in play. If the other player snapped then you can retreat before the cosmic cubes are doubled.
Now you know how to play Marvel Snap, go forth and gather some cosmic cubes!
