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5 Tips for Buying Cards in the Token Shop and Preparing for the Series Drop

In this guide, we will give you 5 tips to get the most out of Collector's Tokens when buying cards.

A new patch is approaching, and with it, the Series Drop will happen and some cards will become easier to get. So we have prepared 5 tips on buying cards through the Token Shop.

1. Know your Token Shop cycle

To understand which cards will soon appear in the Token Shop, and which cards you will not see soon, you can look into the game files that store information about the state of the Token Shop cycle (more information about how the Token Shop works can be found here).

The file that you need to open is located at:

  • For the Steam version:
C:\Users\(Your username)\AppData\LocalLow\Second Dinner\SNAP\Standalone\States\nvprod\RewardState.json
  • For the Android version:
Internal memory\Android\data\com.nvsgames.snap\files\Standalone\States\nvprod\RewardState.json
  • For the MacOS version:
~/Library/Containers/SNAP/Data/Documents/Standalone/States/nvprod/RewardState.json

Unfortunately, there is no way to open the required file on devices running the iOS operating system.

You need to open the file and find the line “TokenShopCardsSeries5Box”. It will list all the cards that were recently shown to you from this pool in chronological order, and you will not see these cards again until the full cycle ends.

An example of cards from the current Series 5 cycle

To find out which cards were recently shown from other Series, you can view the data in the parameters “TokenShopCardsSeries4Box” and “TokenShopCardsSeries3Box”, respectively.

Based on this information, you can calculate when it will be possible to see the desired card again. A player without a full collection of pool 3 cards will see on average 1 card from Series 5 every 2 days. A player who has a complete pool 3 collection will see on average 1 card from Series 5 every day.

The full list of cards from each Series can be found here.

2. Know the value of Collector’s Tokens

The graph shows the progress of getting Collector’s Tokens and obtaining new cards as your Collection Level progresses.

As you can see, the player’s progress has two important milestones. These points are marked by two vertical dotted lines. Now let’s compare what changes after reaching these waypoints.

СriteriaCL 500-1005CL 1006-3300CL 3300+
Approximate number of
Collector’s Tokens per 100 CL
240208950
Approximate time required to get 1 new
pool 3 card from the collection track
(or pool 4 card after completing pool 3)
2 days3 days30 days

According to our calculations, after reaching Collection Level 1006, the player spends 3 days on average without using any gold to obtain one Pool 3 card. During the process of obtaining the complete pool 3 collection , the player will receive approximately 9000 Collector’s Tokens (including 3000 Collector’s Tokens players receive when they reach Collection Level 500). Thus, we can say that if you spend all the Collector’s Tokens received to accelerate the progress of obtaining all the pool 3 cards, then all the Collector’s Tokens will accelerate the completion of the Pool 3 collection by 27 days.

Yes, a month of progress is a lot, but eventually you will have access to all of the Pool 3 cards. But the cards from Series 4 and 5 are much more difficult to get, even if we take into account that the rate of obtaining Collector’s Tokens increases by 456% after receiving all Pool 3 cards. As a result, you should evaluate if buying a Pool 3 card is worth your Collector’s Tokens if you’ll obtain it sooner or later. However, not all cards have the same value.

3. Know the value of the cards

As we said, not all Series 3 cards are equally valuable. Just like the value of Series 4 and Series 5 cards differs significantly depending on the card itself.

Among all Series 3 cards, I would highlight a few that form the basis for archetypes and could significantly help in climbing the ladder, regardless of the other available cards. Aero is also on the list as a good universal win condition on the last turn.

Also you can look at the most recent meta reports to see which cards are frequently used in different decks to determine which ones are strong by themselves or suitable for your playstyle and collection.

4. Know the schedule of the card series drop

In the announcement of the cards Series Drop, the development team made an important statement that could have gone unnoticed.

When choosing which cards to drop, we will often start with some of the ones that have been in that Series the longest. 

Marvel Snap Series Drop January 2023: First Edition Badge and Token Shop Improvement Announcement

In other words, it is likely that the cards will go down in series in chronological order, which is good for making predictions

Therefore, you can roughly calculate when a particular card will be in a certain series. The calendar below does not contain any confirmed information, except for the card series drop on January 31. This is only an estimated order and dates of the future Series drops. But at the same time, this calendar should very accurately show the minimum expected time for a Series drop for the specific card.

(Updated 02/16/2023)

So, for example, if you really want to get Silver Surfer by opening just a few collector’s reserves, then most likely you will have to wait until June 2023 for this. Such information is extremely important when you are considering buying a card with Collector’s Tokens. And this is especially useful information when buying cards that form a meta or cards that could be nerfed before they even become available to a wide range of players.

5. Have fun!

This last tip doesn’t seem very useful and objective, but hear me out. The truth is that every player will eventually have the vast majority of cards and will be able to build a deck that perfectly fits his play style. So why not start building your favorite deck right now? What’s the point of the game if it doesn’t bring joy and you should always think only about the value and important decisions? Therefore, we suggest looking at buying cards from the different perspective and answer the question “Will this card will bring you joy?” and if the answer is yes, then this is a serious argument in favor of buying it.

Conclusion

The experience for each player is individual and consists of many different factors, including a different style of play, the order of obtaining new cards, current Collection Level and rank, as well as regular balance changes. Because of this, we can’t give you precise advice such as “This card is never worth buying” or “You should buy this card right now”. However, these 5 tips can help you decide whether to buy a card from the Token Shop now for the current price or wait for some time and get it later.

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Kirallas
Kirallas

Kirallas is a huge fan of card games. he used to play hearthstone and gwent all the time since day one of their beta. Now he has been playing Marvel Snap since the first season of the game and reaches the infinity rank every month.

His hobby is analyzing card games from a variety of angles. He reveals these topics in his articles.

Articles: 10

4 Comments

  1. My journey through Series 3 was really fun – the regular injection of new cards kept things fresh. I want to keep having fun with Snap. The question is, since earning new cards is now so damn hard, HOW?
    I have been saving credits/tokens for the Series drop. It is noticeable that, as soon as the rate of progression slows, the game becomes repetitive and quite boring. After the Series drop, I presume this cycle will repeat. Trying to min/max it is not fun but, because the economy is so tight, I also feels necessary.

    • For a regular Marvel Snap player, the completion of Series 3 is a HUGE turning point imho!

      Like a fool, on starting to play MS, i didn’t read much about it except “Playing/tips/Decks” etc.

      So on becoming totally enamored with it in the first few days of installaltion, i spent roughly £1-1.5K. This enabled me to complete Series 3 over the first month.

      Sigh, THEN reality hit!!! Lmao. The acquisition of Series 4 cards took some serious getting used to, but it was bearable (just!).

      At this point (finally) i actually bothered to look into just how the card acquisition worked. My initial reaction to Series 5’s 0.25% chance with ZERO pity timer blew my tiny little mind!!!!

      I genuinely fell into a state of denial!!! ( which continues to this day i might add!). I can’t help but think Second Dinner will HAVE to cave at some point & change this system, else waaaay too many will either quit or just stop spending!! I mean just taking my case, my spending has fallen by a factor of hundreds!!

  2. That calendar you posted needs adjusting: Unless something changed that I’m not aware of, Black Panther is still dropping to Series 4 as part of this Series Drop, and so I think we should expect all of the Season Pass cards to drop a month earlier than what the table depicts as well.

    I wish everyone would stop repeating the “you get tokens 500% faster after finishing Series 3” line, because it’s not true. You don’t hit 5 times the initial rate until you’ve finished Series 4 & 5 as well, and all Reserves that would have had cards in them provide (on average) 400 tokens instead. If you’ve finished Series 3 but not Series 4 or 5 you only get tokens 456% times faster. And that’s without taking into account that every time a card drops to Series 3 before you collect it, it takes the place of (on average) 400 tokens when you open it in a Reserve.

    • Yes, you’re absolutely right, thank you! I corrected the article.
      Indeed, all the cards from the season passes will be a month earlier than previously stated. Although the calendar looks more chaotic now. So it is very likely that the distribution by months will actually be smoother than we assume.
      As for percentages, rounded data was taken. But you’re right, we’ll use more accurate numbers.

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