The billion-dollar success of Hearthstone set off a wave of mobile card games with Marvel Snap the most recent addition. We’ve had Gwent, Artifact, Elder Scrolls: Legends and much more. In fact, nearly every big IP has tried to get a juicy slice of the now vastly popular card-game market.
That said, few have rivalled Hearthstone’s reign at the top.
But, with Ben Brode– who was once the lead designer for Hearthstone– now leading Marvel Snap, Hearthstone may find itself a little hot under the collar when it comes to future updates. I mean, considering that Marvel Snap has already won the award for Best Mobile Game at the 2022 Game Awards, Hearthstone certainly has something to fear!
But will Marvel Snap maintain momentum, or is it simply a flash in the pan?
Let’s find out! 👇
Marvel Snap Review Contents:
- Hearthstone Versus Marvel Snap
- Monetisation
- Game Variety
- Card Balance
- New Players & Accessibility
- Progression Systems
- Review Verdict
Hearthstone Vs Marvel Snap
Including his work on World of Warcraft TCG, Marvel Snap is Ben Brode’s third card game. Of which, Brode has pared down the mobile TCG genre to its barest elements throughout Snap’s creation. If it was any simpler, it would be chess!
Chess has no health points and neither does Marvel Snap. Instead, it’s the best of three across three battlefields with the highest power on a battlefield winning. It’s simple until you bring in the superpowers and then anything can happen.
Maybe you seat the hefty Infinaut on the Space Throne, only for Heimdall to teleport him onto the Rickety Bridge and he falls to his death. The unique locations, abilities and animations all do a good job of conveying the heroic battles taking place– Something Hearthstone’s less iconic roster struggles with.
Another nice change from Hearthstone is holding your phone vertically– You know, normally– but its trump card is how quick everything is. A match is four minutes, so you can squeeze one in before your bus arrives when there isn’t time for a seven-minute Hearthstone match.
This built-for-mobile attitude suffuses the game, with ease of use always coming first. Deck building has had the heavy lifting taken out, with decks at an easy ten cards, not thirty. So whether you prefer Hearthstone or Marvel Snap largely comes down to what you’re playing on– Mobile or PC?
You can play a deck that nobody has even seen yet in Marvel Snap too which makes it so much better than Hearthstone Mercenaries in that regard.
Is Marvel Snap better than Hearthstone? Well, not exactly. But it has found a way to attract new audiences who are not as well versed with the format.
Monetisation & Pay-To-Play Model
Someone’s got to pay for free-to-play games, Marvel Snap included. But with kids and teens being the second biggest demographic in the mobile market, you’d hope to see restraint with the game’s pricing. Does Marvel Snap show restraint?
Hardly.
While you can play Marvel Snap without spending a single cent, there’s far too much temptation to hunt for your wallets. The game’s bundles target big spenders, which is to say that half of them run upward of a hundred dollars.
Yet, somehow that’s generous compared to buying Snap Gold bundles. A single common variant in Marvel Snap costs 15 AUD in Gold, the same price as the season pass. So that makes the season pass look appetizing, but $15AUD a month when Hearthstone and Fortnite run the same price for three-month passes?
It’s ugly no matter how you look at it, and to further tempt you, the game’s AI opponents are often stocked up with the prettiest and priciest cards on offer.
Game Variety
As for the game variety in Marvel Snap, well, it’s a little lacking.
Besides the addition of the friendly battle mode, Marvel Snap’s updates appear to be fairly minor. Each month a handful of new cards and locations are rolled out alongside weekly challenges and cosmetics. It’s far from the amount of content its competitors release, but the fans don’t mind.
They don’t mind because there are no classes or limitations on deck building, and a single card can invent a new deck archetype; Patriot bolsters your lacklustre no-ability cards, while Darkhawk incentivises filling the enemy deck with rocks.
One popular deck inspires a counter-deck and the ecosystem changes. You rarely battle the same deck twice, and even then they’re never identical.
It’s an easier way to get to grips with the game and I quite enjoyed the fact that there isn’t one or two single ways to dominate like you can in Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds.
Card Balance
If a card game is too random then the game only tests your luck, but if every result is certain then it tests knowledge more than wit. The draw of a good card game is that anyone can win, regardless of experience, but when everyone has a different collection of cards there’s the question of fairness.
Marvel Snap tilts towards luck, as even the best decks will win you three out of five games.
For the competitive player, this will be frustrating (or at least time-consuming), but it’s perfect for a casual audience. Besides, on a card-to-card basis, the balancing is solid, and if it’s not then the developers are quick to make a change.
New Players & Accessibility
Most mobile card games begin with a cute tutorial where you walk through a winning match step-by-step; After that maybe you fight a couple of AI opponents, and then you’re dropped into the deep end of a pool with hundreds of cards and abilities to learn. Typically, this is what blocks new players from entering most card games.
It’s overwhelming.
Wisely, Marvel Snap has broken up its card pool into chewable pieces, and staggered unlocks. You and other newbies first play in the shallow end with a set of 46 cards, then graduate to a pool of 71, before progressing to join the player base in earnest.
It’s a clever system that once again lends itself towards newbies of the card game genre, while also adding to the general progression loop of the game.
Progression Systems
To keep you playing, a card game will typically have two main draws: competitive play, and collecting cards both shiny and regular variants.
Marvel Snap’s competitive play is only a minor draw, you earn rewards with higher rankings, like card backs, credits, or avatars, but that’s nothing new. What is shiny and new is the titular “Snap” mechanic, which bold players can use to double the stakes.
Sure, the stakes are only a spot up or down in rank, but this small risk/reward system adds a thrilling hint of gambling. Maybe you’ve got a pair of aces in your hand, and a third ace has just gone down, why not go all in? And if you realize they’ve set up a royal flush, there’s always the strategic retreat to let you leave before you lose more.
Predicting your opponent’s plays is prime card gaming, but until now you couldn’t benefit from good guessing. It gives a good reason to learn the fine details of the game, and stirs your competitive spirit if you are transferring from Hearthstone’s Bloodfest.
On the collection side of progression, all your cards are now endlessly upgradeable. So, even if you’ve spent untold amounts of income on acquiring every card, you can still do better in Marvel Snap. You can make your Venomised Deadpool look slick with an Inked finish or gilt your Vibranium Iron Man.
This then feeds into playing cool-looking cards and playing more in general.
Marvel Snap Review Verdict
All things considered, Marvel Snap is lacking in variety but makes for a superb starter game for newbie card game players. And so, for the moment, I have graded this Marvel Snap review a respectable 84%.
But, I fully expect to revisit this once Snap develops its game modes.
Hearthstone set the standard for mobile card games but fell to many trappings of more static play: horizontal screens, drawn-out matches, and a deluge of cards. Flipping this, Marvel Snap favours shorter, simplified systems and gameplay, and satisfies card collecting with assorted cosmetic variants.
The result is a game that accommodates newcomers, while committed players enjoy a growing and changing experience. New cards, locations, challenges and game modes are all on the horizon, with themed events and cosmetics to stoke your inner collector.
On the other hand, obsessive collectors will have a hard time keeping up with the high prices, and scarce resources– It’s clearly not a game for die-hards, as too much is left to chance. But for casual card sharks and genre Marvel fans, it’s great fun!
Thoughts on Marvel Snap? Join the comments below. In the meantime, check out some of our other game reviews and product roundups.
- Tiny Tina Wonderlands Review
- Best Xbox Games For Kids [UPDATED]
- Ghost Of Tsushima Review.
- Best PC Games For Kids (Of All Ages!)
- Razer Turret Review: Xbox One Keyboard
- Horizon Zero Dawn Review
- Must Download PS Plus Games (Updated)
- Scarlet Nexus Review.
Marvel Snap FAQs
Questions about Marvel Snap? Check out some of the most frequently asked questions we receive about Outriders and its gameplay:
–
Content Disclaimer: This Marvel Snap Review has been independently written. GamePro has not been commissioned by Nuverse, nor have we received any royalties for this article. This includes financial reimbursement, free advertising or Marvel Snap gold.
Should you click on any link to Amazon and make a purchase, we may receive a small commission. But that’s just how we keep this website alive! Feel free to hit us up in the comments with any questions you have about Marvel Snap and we’ll hit you back!
