I started writing at Snap.Fan just over two years ago. This will be the 250th article I've written in that time! To commemorate the occasion, I wanted to talk a little about why I love this game so much and why I truly believe it's the greatest card game ever made! That's right, ever! Now come along and let's celebrate Marvel Snap. Buckle up, it turns out I like writing about Snap! Stay tuned ‘till the end where I share the thoughts of some of my favorite Marvel Snap players!
1) Simultaneous Reveals
This is the main innovation that sets Snap apart from traditional card games like Magic: The Gathering and other paper collectible card games. Snap has leaned fully into the advantages that being digital-only allows, and condensing the action with both players making plays that reveal simultaneously has made going back to playing legacy card games feel slow. Other games keep both players engaged by having interaction and other things to do on your opponents turn, but Snap simply does away with the concept of alternating turns. MTG’s most popular casual format, Commander, is a perfect example of how turns can get in the way of enjoyment, as are the long solitaire-like opening turns in the Pokemon TCG.
Speed chess is getting more and more popular as people's tolerance of waiting for their opponent diminishes. The snappy, fast-paced gameplay is a core piece of Snap's success and the popularization of simultaneous play will be Snap's most lasting legacy. Further, so many other games are hampered by the need to balance around who goes first, or come up with convoluted solutions to balance the disadvantage of going second. The priority system bakes that into the gameplay and layers skill with it instead.
2) It places its RNG in all the right places
Any new competitive game needs to include a degree of variance. A developer trying to make a game based on pure skill simply isn't going to beat chess or Go. In order for a game to have replayability, each game needs to play out differently, players of different skill levels must be able to compete with each other, and it needs to hold unexpected surprises.
The grandfather of card games, poker, does this by relying exclusively on random draws from a shuffled deck. Players then mentally evaluate the odds and leverage it for betting. Additional RNG adds that dash of texture that helps a game appeal to a crowd more interested in enjoyment and novelty than the more established and clinical skill expression of chess or poker.
A well-designed game doesn't try to compete with or surpass chess and poker. Those games already exist and you can go play them. Instead, modern games try to balance elements of skill and luck to make a game as engaging as possible. Different game designers seed variance into their games in different ways.
Still one of the best implementations, despite constant attempts to improve on it, is the land system from Magic: The Gathering. It adds an unpredictable element to every game that can, but doesn't always, allow the player with the lesser deck or skill level to win. Because lands are cards in your deck, they become a critical deck-building consideration. Having too many lands reduces your odds of drawing the powerful cards you need, but too few will leave you unable to play what you draw. It's an elegant system that has stood the test of time. Between the land system and the inherent randomness of drawing cards from a shuffled deck, there is a great deal of variance built into every game of MTG. Navigating this variance to successfully manage your resources and find advantages is the primary gameplay loop of the longest running CCG around.
Later games like Hearthstone eschewed this resource system, instead relying on the random nature of a shuffled deck alongside a greater degree of randomness in card effects to provide the game texture. Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't have a paid resource system of mana or lands, but relies on a shuffled deck for most of its variance and places a strong emphasis on card advantage and board presence, which are both multiplicatively correlated with draw. Newer games like Lorcana and Flesh and Blood use the cards themselves as a resource instead of having an outside energy resource like mana or cards that represent lands or energy.
These games feel largely like the product of seasoned card gamers attempting to legislate out a lot of the variance from card games and, as a result, their audiences tend to be composed largely of pretty hardcore former players of other games without as many casual or kitchen table players to bolster the player base. The Pokemon TCG doesn't rely much on random draws. There are quite a few more deck-searching cards in that game than most card games, so the game becomes much more about careful resource management. To seed more RNG back into the game, 6 random cards are set aside at the beginning of the game as prize cards, which does its job, but is quite controversial amongst PTCG players.
The newest game, Pokemon Pocket doesn't have prize cards to add variance, decks are a lot smaller, and games are a lot shorter, but it has added back in some variance from coin flips that paper Pokemon hasn't had much of since its earliest days. As a result, I find Pocket to be a gloomy game with really sharp corners. One wrong decision or unfortunate draw or flip and you can feel locked out of a game.
Marvel Snap has, by far, the smallest deck of any of these games, making draws from a randomized deck easily the smallest source of variance among these games. For most CCGs, variance of draws is the primary locus of variance, but not Snap. Furthermore, Energy in Snap is like Hearthstone’s turn-based mana system where your resources increase each turn (with, of course, cards that tamper with this pattern).
So the designers of Snap mostly eliminated resource RNG, minimized draw RNG, and games are played in tight 6-turn windows (I see you, Illyana). So how did the designers of Snap decide to seed additional variance and texture into their game? Three locations that reveal one-by-one from a pool of hundreds of locations. Rather than putting the variance into players decks or hands, Snap puts it into the environment. Each game plays out differently and presents different challenges to both players. You still need to play the odds and base your bets (Snaps) on different potential outcomes, and you still have to contend with random effects, but you're also playing against the board itself. By combining locations, random card effects, and a sprinkle of draw RNG, Snap has hit upon a great system that is not just replayable, but downright binge-worthy.
3) You don't need all the cards to compete at the highest level
Players with low collection levels make it to the 80s, 90s, and Infinite ranks every month. Even the winner of the most recent Golden Gauntlet Qualifier was a player who is far from collection complete. There is always
a wide variety of archetypes that are viable. Destroy and Discard are two of the more accessible decks that are always good enough to make Infinite. Multiple players that are nowhere near collection complete can be found competing in the top 500 every month. If you're missing one or two cards, you can usually still play a lot of decks with a couple of replacements. One of the very first articles I wrote for SnapFan was a guide to card substitutions and replacements. The examples may be dated (Jeff was the most asked about replacement back then!), but the advice and techniques still hold up. You don't need to copy an exact 12-card decklist to succeed and will often find more success by being unpredictable anyway. There are a lot of expensive Series 4 and 5 cost cards, but people often forget about the massive amount of powerful cards they give us for free. Cards like Carnage, Forge, Cosmo, Lady Sif, Odin, and Iron Man are available to everyone within the first few weeks of playing and will still be seen in the decks of players with Collection Levels in the tens of thousands.
4) Live balance keeps things fresh
Paper card games have to wait for rotations or bans to refresh a format. Snap leans into the strengths of being a digital game and doesn't have to rely on a ban or clumsy errata for game balance. But some digital games still suffer from balance changes that are either too rare or too minor to really keep things feeling new. The constant churn of the metagame helps keep people engaged and the Snap playerbase has gotten somewhat addicted to constant novelty, myself included. The balance team has shown a willingness to take big swings and experiment. Because there's always another change coming up on the calendar soon, no card remains a problem forever and Second Dinner has (so far) avoided the need for card rotation.
One of the things I most love about Snap's balance is how changes to an old card can make it feel new again. Marvel Snap has a stunningly low number of truly bad cards that rightfully see almost no play, with no more than 8-12 of these “unplayables” at the moment, and a big part of that is their balance updates. Almost every card has a role and a home. There are so many cards at the bottom in play rate that are still the pet card of someone using it in a winning deck. I've written two different articles all about how much I love Quake, and two different articles about Martyr, one each even before they got buffed! Both have been integral parts of decks I played to Infinite.
5) Depth vs complexity
A lot is made of how skill intensive a game is, but even more important is how that skill is implemented. Achieving depth of skill without too much complexity is actually very difficult and something that greatly occupies the thoughts of professional game developers.
The easiest way to make anything difficult is to make it complex. A game that is complicated, with large rule sets, multiple mechanics, exceptions, or subsystems can be very rewarding to committed players. They feel like they're a part of the “in group” and there's a definite feeling of richness for players once they know how to play. They also tend to develop a deep sense of loyalty to a game with layers of complexity. Yu-Gi-Oh and Flesh and Blood are two prime examples of games that highly value complexity.
On the other hand, depth refers to how much room a game gives for skill expression, emergent play, and meaningful decision-making after you’ve already learned the rules. A game with depth stays interesting even after hundreds of hours of play. “Easy to learn, difficult to master” is a common mantra. A lot of my favorite games are examples of this, from board games like chess and Go to video games like Tetris or fighting games. Depth is about the potential for mastery. It’s what keeps experienced players engaged long after the initial complexity is internalized.
Traditional TCGs place almost all of their skill expression into things like sequencing (when and in what order to play your cards), domain knowledge (knowing the cards, mechanics, interactions, and the metagame), and resource management (knowing what you have available and will have access to throughout the game). An important skill in any card game is being able to weigh probabilities to help you decide what to do. How likely are you to draw the card you need? How likely is your opponent to have a counter? Marvel Snap still has all that, but packages it in an accessible way with almost no learning curve. It then layers in skill from weighing location-related probabilities and the board management issues that come with having three locations with four spaces each.
Finally, Snap takes a cue from poker and adds a final layer where you can bet on your ability to leverage all of the above skills and probability considerations against your opponent's ability to do the same. The Snap (and retreat) mechanic is both where a lot of the skill expression in Snap lies and is also a force multiplier on the other abilities above. The result is a game that is easy to pick up, but that rewards skill and has near endless replayability as a result.
6) Comic cosmetics
Most games need to fully create their style from the ground up, but Marvel Snap has more than 80 years of art and aesthetic choices to draw from. From the outset they proved they understood the usefulness and beauty of the rich artistic history of Marvel by making “Kirby Krackle,” based on the signature style of Jack Kirby, one of the most sought after flares from splitting your cards. The other benefit of being a Marvel game is they have access to a deep library of Marvel-owned art in the form of comic book covers. I prefer the set of a professional in the comics industry over the art of gaming studios any day, but Snap is able to include both.
Second Dinner has also shown they have good taste and willingness to cater to player preferences. The variants from artists like Peach Momoko and Kim Jacinto started out as Marvel-owned licenses, but SD has gone on to directly commission these artists, which gives us more of their wonderful art and also directly pays the artists for their Snap-commissioned work. If you're a fan of comic books, there isn't a better looking game out there. I've long admired the care put into keeping Snap's connection to comic books. One of my favorite articles I've written goes into how thoughtful the buggy Shocker variant is. I've also written about how much I love the Silver and Bronze age variants. I've even written all about the Polaris art in the game!
7) It's the most hilarious card game
A lot of other card games have a dour and solemn vibe. Marvel Snap has an amazing ability to delight and surprise. Some of the moments in this game are so unexpected and hilarious. Because games are so short and bingeable with so little downtime, we encounter wacky moments at an astounding rate compared to other games. Whether it's unusual board states or crazy 1-in-however-many RNG pulls, there is plenty of comedy in this game. It's not uncommon to see streamers laughing while playing this game, which is something I don't recall seeing much of from other card or strategy games. Speaking of streaming and laughing…
But don't take my word for it!
I asked some of my favorite Marvel Snap players to tell me what they think Snap gets right.
"Snap has the world's greatest YouTuber making videos on it, he is very nice and very handsome... his name is... Alex Coccia! Hahaha, while that's all true, I think Snap really boiled down the essence of fun gameplay, and even through all the other hurdles the game has had, it's the fast, addictive gameplay, with simultaneous turns, variable stakes, approachable complexity in card design, and the pure crazy moments, that always made it more fun for me than any other card game I've ever played.”
“There is no single reason that clearly stands above the rest that makes Snap great. Instead, it’s a confluence of many design decisions that keep Snap highly engaging and replayable. It’s short games with minimal downtime. It’s the dynamics of different locations every game, new cards every week, and balance changes twice every month. It’s the sweet spot of luck and skill. It’s the accessibility and elegance. It’s the gorgeous art; interactive, toylike animations; excellent sound design; and banger soundtrack.”
“Simultaneous turns with dynamic priority determination allows for skill expression that feels more fun and fair compared to some other games that just determine turn order via coinflip and then play out as just a back and forth countering contest. Frequent balance changes help prevent the gameplay from getting too stale, but can also sometimes help collection-incomplete players stay interested since some changes / reworks can make an existing card feel like a brand new card without committing extra resources to an actual new card.”
“It's the best card game ever because you can play it with one hand wherever you are whoever you are AND because it is simple.”
“One of the things I love the most is the ability to completely customize the visuals of your cards (and deck). With different variants and artwork, finishes, flares and borders, you can have loads of different styles. I love combining Ink Splits with Neon Green borders to give it a toxic/90s action figure style look. I'm also digging the recent Fire Borders additions. I particularly enjoy the cards which generate other cards, seeing your chosen card style on created cards (that you might not even own) can be exciting.”
“A lot of good choices set Marvel Snap apart from other card games I've played. I appreciate the efficiency of the parallel gameplay. The drama of the snap. All the meaningful decisions for two people to make as they fight over three lanes for six turns. It's great stuff, and I like it. But more than any of that, I admire the elegant simplicity of the 12-card deck, three-quarters of which will be seen in a normal game. One copy is always the right number to run. Every card gets to matter so much.”
“I am immensely fond of the great game of Marvel Snap and two and half(?) years is too short a time to game with such excellent and admirable Snappers. I don't snap half the games half as much as I should have and I emote less than half my opponents half as well as they deserve.”
“To me I think the best thing about Snap is how it was built from the ground up for mobile with its fast paced games. Most other digital card games have mobile apps but they're usually just mediocre ports where the game itself isn't as suited to the time people have to play games on their phone. It seems much more appealing to a casual audience of people who haven't played card games before bc of that and I think it's the biggest factor that led to it being as successful as it is.”
“There are an infinite amount of reasons why Marvel SNAP stands as the best card game today, but for me, it all comes down to two things and first one is the SNAP mechanic. No other game lets you raise the stakes with confidence or retreat with the same intensity like SNAP does. Secondly, the community is UNMATCHED. Honestly, I don’t see anything coming close unless, of course, it’s another card game from Second Dinner.”
“Marvel SNAP has become everything I have always wanted from a card game. They've created a near perfect deck building game where I can keep playing old archetypes I love like Bounce, while still having new things to constantly explore. Their regular balance passes, steady flow of new cards & sweet limited time game modes make it so there’s always something to look forward to.”
“Marvel Snap is equally great when you are playing a ladder match casually for 3 mins on the toilet and also when you are locked in with a deck tracker playing a 30 min conquest match with everything you have.”
“Marvel Snap is the greatest card game ever because it puts people first. I’ve never seen a dev team more active, more transparent, or more willing to listen. From Discord to socials, they answer, they engage, they adapt. That’s rare in gaming and it builds a trust that makes this community so tight-knit. Then you add the players, the streamers, the casters, the organizers… it feels like one big celebration every single day.
For me, Snap didn’t just give me games to play. It gave me a career, real friendships, and a global family I get to be part of. The design is brilliant, sure. But it’s the people behind it, and the people around it, that make it special. Other card games might launch bigger or claim more depth, but none have the heart Snap does. That’s why this game isn’t just good, it’s the greatest.”
Final Thoughts
Snap is the best card game ever made, and it's certainly my favorite video game of all time. Whether you agree with all of this effusive positivity or vehemently disagree, I'd love to hear from you in the comments! Let me know what YOU think Snap gets right! What did I get wrong? Now is your time to share your opinion! Thanks for reading and here's to the next 250.
This still wasn't enough reading for you?! Check out more of the articles I've written that include Marvel Comics reading recommendations!