Highlights
- Marvel Snap has quickly gained popularity and is now the top-grossing digital card game, surpassing Magic: The Gathering Arena.
- While the game has its own set of rules, there are also unwritten community rules that players should follow for the best experience.
- Players should avoid spending credits on fast upgrades, snap when holding a winning hand, and use emotes cautiously to avoid being seen as toxic.
Marvel Snap has quickly grown to have a large fan base within the mobile gaming space since its launch just under a year ago. In addition to winning Best Mobile Game at the Game Awards 2022, Marvel Snap recently became the top-grossing digital card game, beating out Magic: The Gathering Arena. As the fan base for the game continues to grow, there are a few unwritten rules for the game developed by the community that new players should be aware of in order to have the best experience possible when jumping into Marvel Snap.
Although Marvel Snap has its explicitly outlined rules for playing the game, there is an agreed-upon set of rules that are just as important to the core experience as the intended rules set by the developers. Following these community-derived rules isn't a requirement for Marvel Snap players, but it is usually in their best interest to do so as they act as a sort of best practices guide for optimizing the gameplay experience. Players new to the Marvel Snap community might not be aware of these rules since they mostly come from the game's online fan base, so it's important to understand what they are and why they exist.
Never Spend Credits on Fast Upgrades
As a free-to-play game, Marvel Snap comes with its own varieties of currency and a shop where players can spend that currency on new cards and cosmetics. A key aspect of Marvel Snap's gameplay loop is using these currencies to upgrade the rarity of their cards, resulting in unlocking further bonuses, including more currency. Typically, players need Boosters and Credits in order to upgrade a card, but there is also the option to spend an increased amount of Credits to bypass the need for Boosters in the Fast Upgrades section of the shop.
However, spending Credits in this way is almost never a good investment since Boosters are quite easy to come by. They can be earned simply by playing matches with the card the player wants to upgrade in their deck, meaning they are much more common than Credits. As such, it's a much better idea to save Credits and wait until the player has enough boosters to upgrade the card, avoiding Marvel Snap's Fast Upgrade shop altogether.
Always Snap When Holding a Winning Hand
One aspect of Marvel Snap that sets it apart from other digital card games is its titular Snap mechanic that allows players to risk the Cubes they earn from winning a match by doubling the stakes for both players. For new Marvel Snap players, it can be tough to learn when the best time to Snap is during a match since there is no definitive way to guarantee victory at any given point. However, most players will recommend that players Snap as soon as they're holding the cards that create their deck's specific win condition, such as MODOK, Hela, and Invisible Woman for discard decks, so that there is a greater chance that their opponent stays in the match and doesn't retreat.
Use Emotes Carefully
Although Marvel Snap doesn't contain voice or text chat, players can communicate with each other by using the various emotes the game offers. One specific unwritten rule is to use the Spider-Man pointing emote whenever two players play the same card, but other emotes can have meanings that aren't clear unless the player is familiar with the online Marvel Snap community. The Ms. Marvel thumbs-up emote in particular seems innocent enough at first glance, for instance, but has come to be seen as a rude way to taunt opponents by spamming it when the player wins or thinks they are going to win, meaning players should use it sparingly so as not to be perceived as toxic.
Marvel Snap is available for PC and mobile devices.