Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

One year later, Marvel Snap is my favorite mobile game of all time

Tomas Franzese
By

One year ago today, I gained access to the closed beta for an intriguing mobile collectible card game called Marvel Snap. I’d flirted with collectible card games (CCGs) like it before, but had dropped off titles like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra due to problems with their structure, monetization, and complexity. Within a few matches of Marvel Snap, I saw how disruptive it was into the CCG genre, circumventing many of my problems with it. I’ve been hooked ever since.

In the year since I first played Marvel Snap, rarely does a day go by where I don’t log in. On the first anniversary of its beta, I’m confident enough in the game to declare that it has become not only my preferred CCG to play, but my favorite mobile game of all time.

Recommended Videos

Why Marvel Snap stands out

Marvel Snap has been praised a lot, especially after it saw a wider release in October 2022, and everything said about it is true. It’s much faster-paced than most card games, as it’s only six turns and both people in a match play cards at the same time. This makes rounds enthralling across all six turns and quick enough that I never play only one battle when I boot Marvel Snap up. Couple that with all the potential deck builds that can be played and possible locations that can spawn during a game, and each Marvel Snap match feels very different from one another. They can be fun, frustrating, and even funny.

Marvel Snap onslaught combo
Courtesy Bryant Francis

That’s even the case if you’re using the same deck for a while. For quite a long time, I was using a Patriot and Mystique deck that powered up cards with no abilities. As developer Second Dinner continued to introduce new cards, I started to experiment with different types of decks, like a Morbius/M.O.D.O.K. discard-focused deck, a Collector/Devil Dinosaur one where the goal is to get as many cards into my hand as possible, and most recently, a High Evolutionary/Hazmat setup that unlocks the secret abilities of some cards and greatly debuffs the enemy.

Related

After a while in Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra, I’d feel limited in the decks I could build and the viable enough strategies I could use. Neither are issues for me in Marvel Snap. Even when certain decks dominate the high-level metagame, that doesn’t mean other types of decks aren’t viable. Additionally, the number of recognizable characters turned in the cards encourages me to experiment with and use them.

There’s also the fact that I have an inherent familiarity with the cards I use. While I casually enjoy the worlds franchises like Warcraft and League of Legends occupy, I am less familiar with them than the Marvel Universe, and thus less excited when I pull a creature that I know nothing about. As a die-hard comics fan, though, I get excited each time I earn a new character in Marvel Snap. This game also allows me to play with weirder, obscure characters — like Hell Cow, Orka, Aero, Darkhawk, or The Infinaut — that are extremely unlikely to ever appear in a more traditional video game.

Good cards also aren’t usually locked behind paywalls, but that’s not to say Marvel Snap’s microtransactions are perfect. The $100 offers in the store are eye-raising, but I don’t feel punished for not spending.

And unlike many mobile games, Marvel Snap’s progression is fair and engaging. Daily and seasonal challenges exist to keep players coming back and they refresh often enough that it’s usually worth booting up Marvel Snap a couple of times a day whenever I have a break. The objectives are all achievable enough for those with good knowledge of the game’s systems and they reward ample credits so you typically can upgrade a card or move up a tier in the battle pass within a day.

Marvel Snap card list.
Second Dinner

The slow drip-feed of obtaining cards in Marvel Snap has been a contentious point for the game through the year I’ve played it, but it’s honestly not been much of an issue for me. I’d rather earn cards at a slower pace for free than be required to spend real money for a random chance to get a card I want. I’ve also played enough where it’s only the high-end Series 4 and 5 cards I’m still obtaining. Recent Token Shop reworks have also made getting new cards easier than ever. Plus, Marvel Snap‘s near-weekly updates and the addition of new modes keep giving me more reasons to come back. 

It’s no secret that Marvel Snap is a good game, but for me, it’s one of the first mobile games I’ve genuinely fallen in love with. It fully takes advantage of a great IP to create a CCG with a sense of familiarity as soon as you boot it up. It’s consistently fun to play, and it has all of the proper progression systems to keep me playing for a year and not feeling like I’m getting bored grinding. Even if you don’t typically play CCGs or mobile games, it’s a must-play that’s only gotten better in the year since its closed beta began.

Marvel Snap is available now for Android, iOS, and PC.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Marvel Snap will fix its biggest problem by adding a new shop
marvel snap token shop update fixes big problem

Marvel Snap from the former Hearthstone devs at Second Dinner made a strong first impression when it launched and is considered one of the best mobile games of 2022. Unfortunately, one issue that's plagued the game since its beta days: it's impossible to unlock specific cards intentionally. Thankfully, the next season of Marvel Snap will change that. During a developer update video teasing The Power Cosmic, Marvel Snap's next in-game season, Second Dinner detailed the Collector's Token and Token Shop system that will make targeting cards easier. 
Currently, Marvel Snap cards are split into Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3 sets, and players earn cards within each series randomly before progressing to the next. The random nature of it means that players might have to wait for a long time before they actually get the helpful cards they want. Once The Power Cosmic season begins, players will be able to purchase specific cards with a new type of currency called Collector's Tokens. This is not a paid currency, players can only earn it through gameplay rewards after Collection Level 500.
Players can then spend Collector's Tokens in the Token Shop, which features one new card every eight hours. Players can pin cards they really want, earn Collector's Tokens to spend, and then purchase the specific card for themselves via the Token Shop. It'll still probably be faster to get cards through raising your collection level, but giving a non-randomized way to earn cards is much appreciated as a longtime Marvel Snap player.
Token Shop and The Power Cosmic Season | Developer Update | December 2022
Of course, the addition of this system increases the need for more high-level cards, so Second Dinner will also add brand new Series 4 and Series 5 cards when The Power Cosmic season rolls around. The following heroes are part of this new Series.

She-Hulk
Titania
Luke Cage
Absorbing Man
Maria Hill
Agent Coulson
Helicarrier
M'Baku
Attuma
Orka
Galactus
Valkyrie 
Super Skrull
Shuri
Baster
Thanos and the six Infinity Stones

Read more
Rocksmith+ launches next week, and it’ll cost you at least $100 a year
Rocksmith+'s interface shows music notes coming towards the screen.

Following a lengthy period of silence on the matter, Ubisoft has taken to Twitter to announce that Rocksmith+ is receiving a surprise PC release next Tuesday, September 6. The company states that a console release date for the game "will be available at a later time."

Rocksmith+ was initially revealed at the Ubisoft Forward event during E3 2021 and was slated for release in the back half of the year. Following mixed reception during the PC closed beta, however, Ubisoft opted to delay it into 2022 to implement improvements. The game will now launch mere days before this year's Ubisoft Forward livestream, which takes place on September 10.

Read more
Before Your Eyes devs explain why Netflix works as a gaming platform
The Ferryman points to a blink symbol in Before Your Eyes.

Most developers like to make their games as widely available as possible. For large companies that need to make a profit, it makes sense to put a game on as many platforms as possible and ensure that it has the type of gameplay people might already be familiar with and are interested in picking up. GoodbyeWorld Games and Skybound Games' indie title Before Your Eyes bucks that trend in many ways.
Before Your Eyes' primary method of control is blinking. It's a game about someone remembering their life after they died, but they can only stay in a particular memory until they blink. On PC, the player's webcam tracks their eyes and moves the story forward every time you blink. The player's body commands the experience, even if it's not always possible to control blinking. It's a poignantly emotional experience that will have you in tears by the end, but it's also a game that only works on specific platforms and isn't comparable to much else.
Before Your Eyes - Launch Trailer
That's why its arrival on iOS and Android via the Netflix app on July 26 is a logical evolution for GoodbyeWorld's underrated gem. Ahead of Before Your Eyes' Netflix Games release, Digital Trends spoke to creative director and writer Graham Parkes and game director and composer Oliver Lewin to learn how they brought Before Your Eyes to life and how its bold rejection of gaming norms is the key to this atypical experience's success.
Seen on mobile
Before Your Eyes started as a capstone project at USC. Parkes admitted that they didn't really think about if the game needed to have broad appeal and compatibility with every gaming platform. The PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch don't have built-in webcams, so GoodbyeWorld couldn't put Before Your Eyes on those platforms with their desired controls. As a result, there are only specific platforms to which it can expand. Mobile was the most logical place to go next from Parkes' point of view.
"We always knew that mobile was a great fit and wanted the game to come to mobile because we're using a mode of control that everybody is inherently familiar with," Parkes explained. "Everyone has eyes and everyone blinks, so we always wanted to design the game to be played by gamers and non-gamers alike. We feel like mobile is a perfect home because you can get those casual gamers who might check something out on their phone but don't have a Steam account or console."
Of course, bringing the game to phones presented a unique set of challenges. Modern phones all have high-quality cameras, so that wasn't as much of an issue. Still, GoodbyeWorld and the port developers at BKOM Studios did have to account for things like arm positioning and phone rotation. 

Before Your Eyes on mobile can seamlessly switch between a horizontal and vertical perspective if someone turns their phone so that people can play in the most comfortable position for themselves. This feature presents challenges with localization and camera framing, though.
"The way text appears on screen actually requires a ton of programming and design work, and to be able to just completely change it from vertical to horizontal means we need a pretty robust solution for how that text is going to swap smoothly, so it doesn't look jumbled," Lewin said. "Another challenge was camera framing and getting it to flow cinematically. The PC version has a traditional landscape ratio, and while we liked the comfort of playing it vertically in your hand, it felt too zoomed in and claustrophobic. We had to find ways to pull the camera back a little bit when you swap to vertical, so it retains that cinematic, lifelike quality in the look."
"Netflix is a platform that's known for stories."

Read more