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Marvel Snap’s Winterverse event introduces new cards, variants, and more

By Tomas Franzese December 20, 2022

The latest Marvel Snap update kicks off the Winterverse event, bringing many holiday-themed variants and brand-new cards to the mobile card game.

The two new cards coming to Marvel Snap this week are Darkhawk and Sentry. Darkhawk is a superhero who first emerged in the 1990s and has a techno-organic body with glider wings. In Marvel Snap, he’s a 4-Cost, 1-Power Ongoing card that gives +2 Power for each card in the deck of your opponent.

Meanwhile, Sentry is a hero that was introduced in 2000 that has Superman-like abilities, but is connected to an evil entity called the Void that’s just as powerful. In-game, that translates to Sentry being a 4-Cost On Reveal card with 8-Power that can’t be played at the right location, as playing Sentry will cast a -8 power Void card there.

The Winterverse Event is HERE!

With snowy, new variants and even more rewards this holiday season what are you most excited for during this MARVEL SNAP celebration? pic.twitter.com/mag0G0rkqB
— MARVEL SNAP (@MARVELSNAP) December 20, 2022

We don’t know if Sentry and Darkhawk are Series 3, Series 4, or Series 5 cards yet. It will take some time for Marvel Snap’s meta to evolve and really prove whether or not Darkhawk and Sentry are all that useful, but they do both have interesting abilities. Regardless, keep an eye out for them in Collector’s Reserves and in the Token Shop.

They’re not the only part of the Winterverse event, though. From December 20 until January 2, Second Dinner is giving away in-game awards for logging in each day. These range from 100 credits to a special Nick Fury card variant featuring Samuel L. Jackson’s signature. Five new winter-themed card variants will also start to show up in the shop and Collector’s Reserves. You can now find Winterverse cards for Abomination, Ebony Maw, Patriot, Rockslide, and Rogue.

A Winterverse bundle that includes a Sunspot Winterverse Variant, Avatar, 2000 Collector’s Tokens, 8000 credits, 100 Sunspot Boosters, and a “Tacos After This?” title will be added to the shop in the coming days as well.

Marvel Snap is available now for iOS, Android, and PC, and it even made Digital Trends’ best games of 2022 list.

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Gaming Staff Writer

Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

Gaming

Marvel Snap Battle Mode: How to play Marvel Snap with friends

Rogue and Gambit in Marvel Snap.

Free-to-play card game Marvel Snap has taken the video game industry by storm, bringing even non-comic book fans on board to enjoy its wild antics. It's a game with a satisfying loop, a rewarding sense of progression, and plenty to unlock, without ever feeling overwhelming. Despite this, developer Second Dinner still has lots in store for Marvel Snap players, including a new way to play with friends.

After months of waiting, you can finally pair up with your friends to battle it out online. This is thanks to the new Battle Mode in Marvel Snap, which aims to allow a more casual way to play with anyone you'd like.

Gaming

Marvel Snap’s Friendly Battles set a new bar for its post-launch support

marvel snap friendly battle mode impressions key art

I’ve been hooked on Marvel Snap ever since I gained access to its beta in May 2022. The core, fast-paced gameplay has allowed the card game to sustain itself on just one match type and very few game-changing updates outside of the Token Shop. That feeling probably won’t last forever, though. If Second Dinner wants to keep the Marvel game relevant after a strong launch period, it needs to keep expanding and spicing it up in exciting new ways. The new Friendly Battle is a solid first step for that.
MARVEL SNAP's NEWEST Feature | BATTLE MODE | Play With Friends Now!
Marvel Snap’s developers teased a Friendly Battle mode that allows players to create private games with friends for a long time. The mode finally arrived on January 31 and lived up to expectations. In fact, playing it whetted my appetite for the future of Marvel Snap as I think about how the game could expand and improve with more social systems and modes to keep players coming back for years to come.
The strengths of Friendly Battle mode
Marvel Snap’s Friendly Battle mode utilizes the same six turn, location, and card ability-based formula Digital Trends has praised thoroughly. What’s different is the length of the fights and who you can compete against. Typically, matchmaking is random, but Friendly Battle allows players to Create and Join matches via a generated Match Code. This means there is finally an easy way to play Marvel Snap with your friends, showing off your deck or testing new strategies with them.
These aren’t just one-and-done matches like normal, though. Instead, each player takes one of their decks into a round-based battle where they start with 10 health. Whoever loses each round will also lose health equal to the Cube Value. This keeps going until one player runs out of health, with higher Cube Value stakes from Round Five and onwards, ensuring that Friendly Battle retains the speediness of the default game mode. The health-based setup is an enjoyable variation of Marvel Snap’s core formula.
It gives another purpose to snapping during a match outside of account progression. Meanwhile, the round-based setup allows players to stretch their strategic muscles as they adapt to each new round, finding the opposing deck’s weaknesses and trying to avoid their own. Plus, even when I was joining games using codes players posted on Marvel Snap’s Discord, there was a greater sense of community in discovering what decks other players were using and communicating with my opponent more via the in-game messages and emotes.

Seeing the strengths of Friendly Battle mode, it has become evident what elements of the game the developers need to focus on and expand going forward.
Setting a precedent
Looking at games like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, their communities are what have allowed those card games to stand the test of time. Marvel Snap may be just as good as those from a gameplay standpoint, but it needs interested players to continue supporting it over the long term if it wants to be more than the mobile gaming fad. With players getting increasingly mad at its microtransactions and progression, it is a critical time to renew interest.
Friendly Battle is an excellent first step for that. This new mode finally gives Marvel Snap players a more direct way to connect and potentially set up tournaments that can keep the competitive scene alive. Second Dinner still needs to add more social features in-game, though. Second Dinner teased that it considering the addition of Player Guilds last year, and being able to join a Guild or at least Friend another player’s account would encourage players to stick around and play and socialize with their friends more.
Being able to trade cards with other players is a feature I’d like to see because of how odd Marvel Snap’s progression is. For something like that to work, though, Guilds or an account friending system are necessary prior additions. The necessity of a dedicated social community of players also means that the developers must add more new modes so veterans have a reason to stick around and new players have new reasons to join.

Gaming

Tomb Raider returns as a mobile roguelike via Netflix

tomb raider reloaded release date

Tomb Raider Reloaded, a roguelike mobile game based on Crystal Dynamics' long-running series, has been unveiled ahead of its release on iOS, Android, and Netflix on February 14.
Tomb Raider Reloaded is Coming Soon - Register Now!
Tomb Raider Reloaded is a top-down action game where players control Lara Croft. She'll go from room to room, defeating enemies and solving puzzles in each one. In typical roguelike fashion, Croft will get more powerful over time as players level up, obtain XP modifiers, find stat-boosting Runes and Perks, and craft weapons and outfits. Lara will be voiced by Keeley Hawes, who portrayed her in games like Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, rather than Camilla Luddington, who played Lara Croft in Crystal Dynamics' rebooted trilogy.
This announcement comes on the heels of Amazon making a large investment in the Tomb Raider franchise. Amazon Game Studios will publish the Unreal Engine 5-powered Tomb Raider game in development at Crystal Dynamics and is developing TV shows and movies connected to the game. Amazon is not involved with the release of this mobile game, though, as developer Emerald City Games and Embracer Group-owned publisher CDE Entertainment are handling it. Regardless, 2023 has been the busiest year for Lara Croft in a while.
The game will be available normally on iOS and Android, but Netflix subscribers can also download a version of the game that doesn't have any in-game ads or microtransactions. The release of Tomb Raider Reloaded will come right on the heels of the launch of Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, another Netflix mobile game based on a notable console game.