[Marvel Snap] THIS THREAD IS DEAD! POST IN THE NEW ONE!

MNC Dover

Welcome to Marvel Snap. This is a fast-paced CCG where games are only meant to last for 3 minutes. The game is developed by Second Breakfast, a new studio formed by a lot of old Blizzard employees.

Here's the hype trailer:
https://youtu.be/61zjv1HcJDI

And here's a breakdown of the gameplay:
https://youtu.be/eYYcxWMCghE

Game flow:
Basically, you'll build a deck of 12 cards. The game starts with 3 "locations" in the middle of the board. The first location on the left is revealed on turn 1, with the next two locations being revealed on turns 2 and 3. There are a total of 6 rounds, with each round having a player draw a card and gain an extra Energy to play their cards.

Players simultaneously place their card(s) on one of the three locations in the middle of the board. Once they lock in, their cards are revealed and any effects resolve. Your cards provide a Power value that combines with all your cards on a given location. If you have the most power at the end of turn 6, you win the location. The player who controls two of three locations wins the match.

More details:
Here's the highlights directly from the developer stream:

Everyone starts with the same, simple starter deck.
Some cards in the starter deck don't have any abilities. (Thing, Misty Knight).
There will be 60 locations available at launch of MARVEL SNAP.
Every week, a new location will be added to the game.
New locations will have an increased frequency of being seen when it's still new (a couple of days).
They already have "a ton" of new locations created, ready to launch after release.
Closed beta is starting within the next week or two. Go sign-up for it (Android only).
Cards have rarities, but all cards have the same chance of being obtained.
You can upgrade your cards to higher rarity levels.
Each rarity has a new cosmetic flair for the card.
Common - Static pictures of the card art.
Uncommon - The artwork breaks out of the frame.
Rare - 3d effect on the art.
Epic - The card gains an animation.
Legendary - The name of the card becomes shiny.
Ultra - Your card border becomes animated.
Infinity - Split the card into two copies, you keep your infinity copy and you get a new common version of it with a special cosmetic effect.
You can repeat this process multiple times to gain extra special effects each time.
Collection level increases as your cards gain higher rarities and this helps you unlock more cards.
Every month will have a new season pass with themed rewards.
Every month brings new cards in via a battle pass and later on they will become available for free.
Battle passes might be about upcoming Marvel content coming out or previous events in the universe.
Each month is a new ranked season.
Higher ranks means better rewards each month.

Jam Warrior

Whilst I get the Marvel thematic link, the card game link to the name Snap doesn’t exactly conjure images of particularly deep tactical play!

KoopahTroopah

Yesssssssssssssss I'm excited for this. Love Ben Brode and the art/presentation seems to knock it out of the park. I want my grubby fingers on some beta.

Edit - And I just got my invite closed beta starts today.

KoopahTroopah

Check your mails.


Edit - Did the two tutorial games so far on my S9+, game drains my battery and makes my phone run hot but it looks like it's running well enough. Cards look and sound great, and the interface is decent for a beta. I can't seem to find the entire collection of cards yet which is a bummer, or a complete list of the variants offered. I just see the current ones in the battle pass and the shop. Speaking of which, typical mobile stuff at play here, fake currency earned from playing to upgrade cards and get them to break the frame or be 3D, or real money fake currency to buy art variants. Upgrading cards also unlocks new cards, but that appears to be random. So at least on surface level for example, I can't just go unlock Carnage if I wanted to, I have to roll for him by upgrading cards. This in turn limits availability at least for new players to just netdeck and play 'Best deck' of the meta immediately, which seems like a good idea. Also this adds more RNG to the meta since pulls seem random.

ObiFett

I didnt get in... Noooo!

KoopahTroopah

So I played a bunch of games (undefeated! but mostly because of bad opponent moves ) and the game is super quick and fun. I also poked around more and found the filters for collection to show unowned cards so now I can see every card. Also there's a collection level based on how fast you leveled and upgraded cards, the rewards are set cards until level 18 and then it becomes random from there.

There's also a 30 FPS(medium quality) mode which works better for my older smart phone. Doesn't look as smooth but less hot and less battery needed.

KoopahTroopah

Finally lost one, misplayed my iron man in the wrong location and didn't math up properly.

Game is really fun! I like the combos so far with increasing ongoing effects and doubling up on reveal effects. Art is a knockout.

MNC Dover

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Finally lost one, misplayed my iron man in the wrong location and didn't math up properly.

Game is really fun! I like the combos so far with increasing ongoing effects and doubling up on reveal effects. Art is a knockout.

Stop updating me on the game! I can't play on iOS! I'm super jealous!

Ahem...but please, do tell me more. Excite!

Kyanilis

Got in and have been sneaking in games all day. It's uhh, a lot of fun as I expected. Though I'm not sure I've played against any human people. I appreciate that they have bots, but hopefully they get enough people in the beta. Not that I exactly hate winning most matches, but I feel like it's cheating a little bit.

KoopahTroopah

Kyanilis wrote: »

Got in and have been sneaking in games all day. It's uhh, a lot of fun as I expected. Though I'm not sure I've played against any human people. I appreciate that they have bots, but hopefully they get enough people in the beta. Not that I exactly hate winning most matches, but I feel like it's cheating a little bit.

Yeah a lot of early games, I think until you get to 'Iron' rank and unlock the Snap feature, feel like bots. I think one or two might slip in.

Edit - Here's a highlight of my stream I did last night:

Had some issues with Phone Link and not being able to use my PC mouse to control the app, but it worked for the most part.

Spicy_Rev

Ha, totally separate from this thread, I applied for a beta code. I didn't get one. I never played Hearthstone but I have been playing PvZ Heroes for years and just started playing Animation Throwdown.

ObiFett

Is there no "tribal" support in this game? I dont see types on any of the cards and it feels like a massively wasted design space

MNC Dover

ObiFett wrote: »

Is there no "tribal" support in this game? I dont see types on any of the cards and it feels like a massively wasted design space

Listening to an interview with Brode, he mentioned that they didn't design the initial cards around creating "prebuilt" deck archetypes like you'd see in regular CCGs. It was mostly just creating abilities and letting the players mash them together.

I'd be shocked if they didn't one day create tribes (X-Men, Fantastic 4, etc) that synergize with locations or each other in some way.

KoopahTroopah

No tribes, but it seems that they are designing cards similarly. A lot of the GotG have similar abilities. (I.E. On Reveal, if your opponent also played a card in the same area give this card +power)

MNC Dover

Here's a 20-minute explainer video from Hearthstone alumni Trump.

https://youtu.be/EcvZE-dSB0s

Not a bad info dump. Makes not getting to play a bit tougher though.

Garthor

Oh I thought this was like Pokemon Snap, but for Marvel.

Throw a Pester Ball at Thor and whatnot.

ED!

Watching the Trump videos and this looks good. It's obvious the depth is there (60+ locations, however many cards) and Brode knows what he's doing - however it is the short match times that sold me. I remember playing Hearthstone or Magic on the bus and losing connections. . .and matches. Three minute matches or so is the perfect length for waiting for your train, or standing online at Wholefoods, etc. Hopefully the "Closed Beta" is more for advertising/final tuning and the game is out this year.

. . .also the "RETREAT" option seems like a stroke of genius for handling those long streaks of losing in these kinds of games and helping to mitigate ranked free-falls.

KoopahTroopah

After playing this for a few hours over two days and just literally upgrading everything every chance I get, and buying all the upgrades offered in the store, I am already out of credits. So it definitely feels like the upgrades offered to credits rewarded ratio is off. I only have about ~50 cards out of 200(I actually don't know the total?). The ratio of gold to credits is pretty bad too. Something like 400 gold for 500 credits. I now see the mobile aspect of it creeping in already, which is a shame. The fun part right now is upgrading and collecting cards and the game is actively slowing that down.

PMAvers

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

After playing this for a few hours over two days and just literally upgrading everything every chance I get, and buying all the upgrades offered in the store, I am already out of credits. So it definitely feels like the upgrades offered to credits rewarded ratio is off. I only have about ~50 cards out of 200(I actually don't know the total?). The ratio of gold to credits is pretty bad too. Something like 400 gold for 500 credits. I now see the mobile aspect of it creeping in already, which is a shame. The fun part right now is upgrading and collecting cards and the game is actively slowing that down.

From what I've heard, the devs have said the economy is actually scaled to go along with another game mode that isn't live yet which gives another source of credits. So it might be fine once everything's running?

MNC Dover

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

After playing this for a few hours over two days and just literally upgrading everything every chance I get, and buying all the upgrades offered in the store, I am already out of credits. So it definitely feels like the upgrades offered to credits rewarded ratio is off. I only have about ~50 cards out of 200(I actually don't know the total?). The ratio of gold to credits is pretty bad too. Something like 400 gold for 500 credits. I now see the mobile aspect of it creeping in already, which is a shame. The fun part right now is upgrading and collecting cards and the game is actively slowing that down.

I haven't been able to find too much information about the ecosystem of the game. I'm assuming there is gold and credits, but what are they used for exactly? How do you acquire cards?

Jam Warrior

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

After playing this for a few hours over two days and just literally upgrading everything every chance I get, and buying all the upgrades offered in the store, I am already out of credits. So it definitely feels like the upgrades offered to credits rewarded ratio is off. I only have about ~50 cards out of 200(I actually don't know the total?). The ratio of gold to credits is pretty bad too. Something like 400 gold for 500 credits. I now see the mobile aspect of it creeping in already, which is a shame. The fun part right now is upgrading and collecting cards and the game is actively slowing that down.

Shouldn’t the fun bit be the actual playing of the card game? There are cheaper and easier ways to look at a gallery of Marvel jpgs.

Yilias

People like to collect things even if they don't intend to use them. Just look at stamps, gacha games, or a bit one the nose, baseball cards.

I needed anime to post.

a huge part of the fun of card games is also experimenting with a wide variety of cards, and if you reach a point where you can no longer acquire new things to experiment with, you're left with just trying to refine what you have over and over again

(i am personally not particularly expecting great things from the monetization, i do not trust marvel mobile games no matter what developer is working on it)

KoopahTroopah

Jam Warrior wrote: »

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

After playing this for a few hours over two days and just literally upgrading everything every chance I get, and buying all the upgrades offered in the store, I am already out of credits. So it definitely feels like the upgrades offered to credits rewarded ratio is off. I only have about ~50 cards out of 200(I actually don't know the total?). The ratio of gold to credits is pretty bad too. Something like 400 gold for 500 credits. I now see the mobile aspect of it creeping in already, which is a shame. The fun part right now is upgrading and collecting cards and the game is actively slowing that down.

Shouldn’t the fun bit be the actual playing of the card game? There are cheaper and easier ways to look at a gallery of Marvel jpgs.

I mean the game is fun, I do enjoy playing the game, but I also enjoy deck building and deck building with what I have turns into just playing cards on curve that buff each other. It's kind of limited because of my card pool.

I needed a gnome to post. wrote: »

a huge part of the fun of card games is also experimenting with a wide variety of cards, and if you reach a point where you can no longer acquire new things to experiment with, you're left with just trying to refine what you have over and over again

(i am personally not particularly expecting great things from the monetization, i do not trust marvel mobile games no matter what developer is working on it)

Basically this. I didn't even know there was another game mode coming out, but if it increases credits earned then I'm in.

MNC Dover wrote: »

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

After playing this for a few hours over two days and just literally upgrading everything every chance I get, and buying all the upgrades offered in the store, I am already out of credits. So it definitely feels like the upgrades offered to credits rewarded ratio is off. I only have about ~50 cards out of 200(I actually don't know the total?). The ratio of gold to credits is pretty bad too. Something like 400 gold for 500 credits. I now see the mobile aspect of it creeping in already, which is a shame. The fun part right now is upgrading and collecting cards and the game is actively slowing that down.

I haven't been able to find too much information about the ecosystem of the game. I'm assuming there is gold and credits, but what are they used for exactly? How do you acquire cards?

Credits are earned from doing dailies or spending Gold, Gold is bought with real money or earned from Season Pass levels. Credits are used solely to upgrade cards, by upgrading cards you increase your collection level, and every 4 levels or so you unlock a new random card. Credits is how you expand your card collection for free, because currently this is the only way to get new cards without buying daily ones (I think six in a day, refreshes daily) with gold from the shop. Gold is used to buy credits, and buy cards on the shop.

MNC Dover

Looking at the game loop, I’d already be done for a Star Wars variant. This scares my wallet.

rahkeesh2000

MNC Dover wrote: »

Looking at the game loop, I’d already be done for a Star Wars variant. This scares my wallet.

Good thing it's not Disney Snap?

... somehow that name sounds better.

Kyanilis

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Credits are earned from doing dailies or spending Gold, Gold is bought with real money or earned from Season Pass levels. Credits are used solely to upgrade cards, by upgrading cards you increase your collection level, and every 4 levels or so you unlock a new random card. Credits is how you expand your card collection for free, because currently this is the only way to get new cards without buying daily ones (I think six in a day, refreshes daily) with gold from the shop. Gold is used to buy credits, and buy cards on the shop.

You can't actually buy cards directly for gold. The cards in the shop are the variant arts for cards you already own. The only way to get new cards is to upgrade cards to expand your collection level, but of course that is somewhat limited by credit income and since you can buy credits for gold...well, you can definitely advance faster by paying. Though even that is a bit limited by having to acquire boosters from actually playing the game.

I dunno, I don't think the setup for it is outright bad, certainly better than other mobile titles, but it's rough hitting a hard wall with credits so quickly. And yeah, if there's other planned avenues to earn credits, that's great! Also I'd love a way to earn targeted variants for credits, I know eventually the collection level track gives variants but that's so far from now I'm not sure it even registers. Speaking of, do we know what use boosters have after hitting legendary? Are there ranks above legendary?

I also like the idea of specific locations being on rotation to show up more often, but I don't love mojoworld so the last couple of days have felt a little rough heh.

Jombalaya

What’s the RNG like in this game? I quit Hearthstone years ago because there was way too much for my taste.

MNC Dover

Jombalaya wrote: »

What’s the RNG like in this game? I quit Hearthstone years ago because there was way too much for my taste.

While I haven’t played the game, from what I’ve seen, most of the RNG is based around the three locations. It effects both players equally though, so there’s that.

Again, I haven’t played the game, so there might be some card-centric RNG abilities. Perhaps @KoopahTroopah cab answer this one?

KoopahTroopah

MNC Dover wrote: »

Jombalaya wrote: »

What’s the RNG like in this game? I quit Hearthstone years ago because there was way too much for my taste.

While I haven’t played the game, from what I’ve seen, most of the RNG is based around the three locations. It effects both players equally though, so there’s that.

Again, I haven’t played the game, so there might be some card-centric RNG abilities. Perhaps KoopahTroopah cab answer this one?

The RNG is like 95% locations for my decks, but there is a little random in the cards I have so far. There's a 5 energy 1 power, that randomly spawns a 7 power at one of the other two locations randomly. There's also a 3 cost 0 power that buffs three of your other cards by 2 power. Jubilee is a 4 energy 1 power that will play a random 4 power card for you (if I recall). So not game breaking RNG in the cards... however... There IS a location that deletes both of your decks and randomly fills them (I lost that one). There IS a location that randomly spawns a card for you in the location (I think I'm 1/1 with this one). There is also a location that ends the game on Turn 4, and if that pulls up on the third location and you're not placed right by then, you basically lose that instantly too.

WotanAnubis

Watched a couple of videos about this. It does look like it could be a fun little game. Limiting every game to six turns does a lot to help make sure the games don't go on forever.

I do wonder if this game should have a mana system, though. Since the game does take just six turns, it mostly means people will just seek to curve out every time. And since there do not appear to be cards that spend mana once played or allow you to ramp (from what little I've seen, I could be wrong here), the game seems to have a mana system because cards games have to have a mana system.

Of course, the really important question is, is there an Elsa Bloodstone card yet?

KoopahTroopah

I haven't found a card that increases energy yet and I was wondering the same thing. I have an "on curve" deck right now that has Quicksilver (always in hand turn 1), Domino (never in starter hand but always draws turn 2), and Amanda Chavez (always drawn on turn 6). Then I filled it with 3,4,5s that I like.

Edit - My last opponent just showed me Carnage for the first time (on reveal destroy each of your own cards on this location and gain +2 per card) and combo'd it with Angel (if a card is destroyed, replace it with this) and Nova (on destroyed, give all your cards +2 power), and it looked really cool. I hope there are more on destroy effects. I know Bucky Barnes is a really 1 energy two power, on destroy turn into Winter Soldier (6 power). Death also is a 7 cost 13 power I think and gets -1 energy cost per card destroyed. I feel a good deck here if I can get the cards.

KafkaAU

I’ve seen a location that increases energy by 1

Kyanilis

Finally saw a card that adds energy, Psylocke is a 2 cost that gives +1 energy on your next turn.

KoopahTroopah

Kyanilis wrote: »

Finally saw a card that adds energy, Psylocke is a 2 cost that gives +1 energy on your next turn.

Sick. Thanks! Hope I get that one soon.

MNC Dover

Trump out here breaking Snap....

https://youtu.be/9Ws4xPvg_0g

UrQuanLord88

The more I look at this game the more it resembles Bridge, especially the betting aspect which is rather enjoyable. Coincidentally, the last time I brought up Bridge, I was chided for liking an old person's game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Luq

UrQuanLord88 wrote: »

The more I look at this game the more it resembles Bridge, especially the betting aspect which is rather enjoyable. Coincidentally, the last time I brought up Bridge, I was chided for liking an old person's game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hey man Bridge is great. When I was a kid the old lady across the street taught me how to play that and Michigan Rummy, which is still in my top 5. I suppose I'm not really refuting the argument though.

KoopahTroopah

Okay, Nova into Carnage might be busted... a lot of opponents just retreat after I get that combo off. Especially after a squirrel girl setup or squirrels from central park location.

I would actually love a destruction deck but I need Bucky, Death, and Sabertooth. Maybe another activator.

KoopahTroopah

Okay, working on a destroy deck:

• Squirrel Girl - Fills board for nova buff, extra cards for Carnage to eat.
• Angel - Easy deck thin, and plus free power on destruction
• Nova - The buffer, on Destroy +2 to all cards.
• Carnage - Activator for buff, high power for low cost.
• Strong Guy - Empty hand for higher power, probably weakest card in the deck? Replace with Sabertooth once I get.
• Wolverine - When destructed/discarded play somewhere for free.
• Lady Sif - High power low cost, always discards Apocalypse for higher six drop.
• Moon Girl - can copy cards like squirrel or nova for extra buff.
• Deathlok - Another activator, not sure if there's a second destroy like Carnage.
• Namor - Just a solid single card for third location, would replace with Death or Taskmaster to play before Apocalypse.
• Sword Master - Another high power low cost, hopefully hits Apocalypse on 4 or 5.
• Apocalypse - Big ol beefy 6 drop to secure a location.

Not sure if there's other Destroy cards but would be happy to know!
Edit - Found a database: https://marvelsnapzone.com/marvel-snap-cards-guide/

So yeah,

• Deadpool would be good, but needs to be replayed for 1 energy each time.
• Arim Zola could be sick if there's a turn 7 and played on Apocalypse
• Bucky is really solid.
• I think Destroyer is too much? I dunno if that's "all" cards or just on location.
• Venom seems like a great replacement to Deathlok.

So definitely some room for improvement but I'm missing a bunch of cards.

ObiFett

Gonna be real hard to catch up to the builds these beta players already have access to