Highlights
- Marvel Snap appeals to card-builder and comic book fans, with recognizable artwork from iconic covers and interiors.
- The addition of token variants, starting with Squirrel Girl, is a step in the right direction for Marvel Snap, and fans can hope to see more in future updates.
Marvel Snap has a lot of expectations cast upon it as a live-service game that requires balancing, matchmaking, and other consumer demands. Unlike some live-service games, it seems fans are largely accepting of the pricey microtransactions found in Marvel Snap’s shop at any given time, and that’s likely because they are chiefly cosmetic. Certain cards are significant in terms of rotating meta strategies and being able to acquire them via the player’s wallet may contradict that plight in some cases, but some fans are content to have a favorable card variant that they’ve had their eye on for some time.
Marvel Snap is wonderful for card-builder fans, and it’s even more of a love letter to comic book fans. This is demonstrated through the diverse media that card variants are sourced through, with many characters’ default and variant art being recognizable as an iconic piece of cover or interior art fans might’ve seen before in comics. New seasons create new collaborations, too, and this month’s Bloodstone season in Marvel Snap sees the Nightforged variant theme arrive alongside a unique collaboration with Marvel’s Midnight Suns, though a new variant for Squirrel Girl stands out the most.
Marvel Snap’s Bloodstone Season Features the Game’s First Token Variant, and That’s a Big Deal
It might be easily swept under a rug due to the excitement around Elsa Bloodstone, Man-Thing, and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, but a feature fans have wanted for as long as Marvel Snap has been out is finally making its way to the viral mobile game. Squirrel Girl is getting a zombie variant by artist Eduardo Mello and colorist Ryan Kinnaird this month that is undeniably her least cheerful and endearing variant, and what’s even more exciting is the fact that her Squirrel token cards will also feature their own zombie variant.
Cards that produced ‘token’ cards like Squirrel Girl’s Squirrels previously didn’t have any variant skins for their tokens, and they still don’t. But Squirrels now receiving a variant is a massive step forward for the game, suggesting that more token variants will hopefully be arriving soon for cards like Winter Soldier, DoomBots, Ultron drones, or Mysterio illusions.
It was reportedly mentioned that Second Dinner didn’t already have token variants in Marvel Snap due to its resources being pooled elsewhere, though it had addressed the idea of turning to that concern sooner or later, and that time might finally be here. The most obvious issue with token-producing cards not having an associable variant pairing with their tokens is that it creates an inconsistent look between the cards they spawn.
However, Marvel Snap’s Squirrel Girl now has a variant that pairs with its token, which will likely make it a popular skin to equip and upgrade once it is earned. Of course, this is only one card so far that has a token variant, and therefore it’s not a full solution to the problem, but it’s still a step in the right direction that Second Dinner probably wouldn’t have taken if it didn’t intend to follow up on it with more.
It would be incredible to see what Winter Soldier could look like with a 1602 variant alongside Bucky Barnes, after all, or what a Sinister Clone could look like with a Jim Lee variant alongside Mister Sinister. That reality is slowly coming to fruition in Marvel Snap, and fans can hopefully expect to see more token variants in each new update.
Marvel Snap is available on mobile devices and PC.