The Ultimate New Player FAQ for Marvel Snap

How should I spend my Credits?

Credits should be primarily spent to upgrade cards, but not on Fast Upgrades to buy Boosters unless your Credits are maxed out.

What is the maximum Credit limit?

10,000 is the maximum number of Credits you can hold.

Where should I spend my Gold?

Gold should be spent on a few things, depending on your goals. Mission refreshes are good for getting more credits, which gives slightly more credits than strait conversion of Gold to credits and also provides season pass xp. You can buy Variants that you love the look of if your interested in a unique collection. Or you can buy certain bundles with Gold that will often give both credits and variants (and even Collector Tokens) if you want a mix of both styles!

As an additional note, as of the Spotlight Cache update, Gold can no longer be received on the collection track. Free to play player’s will only get gold from weekly mission milestones, reaching level 90 on the ranked ladder, or earning it in the Conquest shop. This means Gold is very difficult to acquire and should be used wisely. For a higher amount of monthly Gold, the season pass offers more in the upgrade track if you purchase the pass, and the weekend missions offer a Gold reward if you use the featured season pass card.

Who reveals their cards first on each turn of the game?

The person who is currently winning the game overall will reveal their cards first. If it’s a tie, a player will be chosen at random. The one sure-fire way to see who will reveal first is to look for the glowing border around a players name: If you’re glowing, you’re going first.



You can see here that player “ExcelledScaler” is glowing, instead of Stella – this means they reveal first.

Who wins the game if one location is tied?

In this situation, the winner is the player who is winning their location by the most. As an example, let’s take a look at this tied game:



Here, Starlight Citadel is tied exactly, so we go to tiebreakers. Doggert is winning Oscorp Tower by two points ( 17-15 ) but Asteroth is winning Monster Metropolis by eight points ( 11-3 ) , a much larger amount, making Asteroth the winner of this game. If the difference is exactly the same, the game is a tie, and no cubes will be won or lost.

What are card series?

In Marvel Snap, all the cards in the game are assigned to a series of cards. Each series varies in size, and begins and ends at a different Collection Level (CL) – In order to unlock a card, you must receive it from a Collector’s Cache/Collector’s Reserve that is opened while you have the appropriate Collection Level. You can find your current Collection Level underneath your avatar on the home screen, in a green bar. To see what series a card belongs to, you can tap the card itself and it will show what series it belongs to at the top of the card art.

Can I unlock specific cards I want?

Through Collector Tokens and the Token Shop, you can try to purchase cards you are aiming for. Each week, Spotlight Caches will also feature 3 set Series 4/5 cards, as well as 1 random Series 4/5 card.

What is the Mystery Series 3 card for in the Token Shop?

This option will immediately unlock a random Series 3 card you don’t own. It can help you unlock a full collection faster, though it does require 1000 tokens to use.

What is the free monthly Series 3 card in the Token Shop?

Each month you can redeem a free Series 3 card! The card is displayed in the shop and features a random Series 3 card you don’t own, and will rotate every day. This allows you to be strategic with your unlock so you can aim for a specific card you want! At the start of a new season, a new freebie will unlock. I’d you didn’t redeem your freebie last season, you simply miss out, so don’t forget to claim it each season!

If you have every Series 3 card, this function becomes useless until a new Series 3 card is added to the collection. Currently, it will not give a Series 4 or 5 card.

How do I increase my Collection Level to begin unlocking all the cards in higher pools?

You upgrade the cards and variants that you currently own! Upgrading cards requires credits and boosters, and does not change what the card does, simply what it looks like and the border around it. Every level of upgrade rewards collection levels, but the amount given depends on the level of upgrade.

What order do all of the “After The Last Turn” effects resolve in?

Cards and Locations that have these effects will always resolve in the order in which they were played or revealed in game. Let’s create an example:

• Dark Dimension reveals itself on Turn Three
• You play a copy of Captain Marvel on Turn Five
• Your opponent plays a copy of Mysterio on Turn Six

In this scenario, the effects resolve in the same order, so:

• Dark Dimension will open up, revealing all the cards within (in order of player priority)
• Captain Marvel will attempt to move somewhere if it thinks it can win the game
• One copy of Mysterio will gain four power, which may now even win the game after Captain Marvel!

How long do Featured Locations and Hot Locations last for?

Featured Locations usually start on Tuesdays 7 PM PST, lasting for 24 hours with a 60% boost to frequency, and are usually brand new locations.

Hot Locations usually start on Saturdays 7 PM PST, lasting for 24 hours with a 60% boost from the existing locations in the game.

What is card splitting, how is it done, and what happens when I do it?

Card Splitting is an option that is made available to you once you upgrade a card to the maximum rank of Infinity Rarity. The button you previously used to press to upgrade the card now has a notification prompt on it to “split the card” – if you do this, you’ll gain a duplicate of the card in your collection, but it will be back at the uncommon rank, with a brand new different background!

This allows you to upgrade this card to maximum rank and split it again, over and over, creating many new versions of the same card. Some backgrounds, like Inkify or Gold, are much rarer than others, and offer an incentive to keep splitting your cards! Check out our detailed guide on Infinity Splitting.



A “Gold Background” split Angela can be seen here.

How much Season Pass XP do I get when I’m playing ladder games?

You gain ten season pass XP for every location you win, five season pass XP for every location you tie, and one season pass XP per turn of the game.

I didn’t buy a previous season pass – can I still get the card rewards from it?

Once the new season ends, the season pass card will be added to the Series 5 collection, and will eventually fall to Series 4 and then to Series 3. Variants in a season pass are limited to that season only, and will never be avaliable again once the season is over.



This often makes the season pass feel like great value!

How do I know when to Snap, and when to retreat?!

There is no “exact science” to this – it mostly just takes practice and familiarity of both you and your opponents plans! Personally, I try to retreat if I’m not 100% confident when my opponent snaps, as some decks such as Sera Miracle tend to save all their big plays until the final turn, and can really catch you out if you’re not prepared.

The best tip we can give you in this regard is to remember that Marvel Snap’s rank progression isn’t tied to how many games you win or lose, but the number of cubes those games are worth. Once you add in the fact that Snap games are so fast, retreating/conceding feels less like a loss in most TCGs and more like folding a hand in Poker: You made a choice to lose a little bit now to keep the rest for another day.

However, snapping aggressively yourself if a different kettle of fish! Our biggest tip to offer here is to Snap before you make what you think is your game-winning play, after all, the more information your opponent has, the more likely they are to retreat instead of giving you those extra cubes! For more in-depth guides on how to snap and retreat, check out our guides How To: Snap and Hot To: Retreat.

How does matchmaking find me an opponent?

Matchmaking tries to find you an opponent based on a combination of your Collection Level, Rank, and current MMR (win-loss rate). The exact formula is not revealed at this time.
Check out the dedicated guide here: https://marvelsnapzone.com/matchmaking/

If I’m ranked higher at the start of a new season, do I miss out on all the rewards for ranks below mine?

A: Nope, you won’t miss out on any rewards – they’ll be ready to collect from your rank track at start of a new season as soon as you’ve played 10 games in the new season.



You won’t be missing out on any rewards, from credits to avatars and funky card backs!

A card says “Discard the card in your hand with the lowest/highest cost” – If I have multiple cards with the same cost, which one will be discarded?

In these scenarios, the discarded card will be chosen at random – so good luck keeping that Hela safe!

What’s the formula for earning card Boosters?

If you want to earn Boosters for a card, you’ve got to be playing it in your deck! You’ll earn one Booster per turn of each game, randomly awarded to one of the cards in your deck but favoring cards with less than 20 owned Boosters.

Agatha Harkness is the only exception to this rule, where you will only earn Boosters for her if she was in your deck.

Why did I not get any Boosters after the game?

You can earn up to 1000 Boosters per day, which equates to roughly 10 hours of gameplay.

Can I upgrade a card without boosters?

Yes you can, but it requires spending Gold to pay a fee for not having the boosters. Since Gold is a premium currency and is hard to come by without spending money, this should be used very rarely.

What are the different types of card abilities, and what do they all mean?

Okay, big question! Let’s break them down:

• Destroy: Destroying cards causes synergistic effects, such as Carnage and Nova.
• Discard: Discarding cards from your hand sometimes causes synergistic effects, such as Apocalypse and Blade.
• Move: Some effects cause cards to move between locations such as Vision, and triggers certain abilities such as Kraven.
• Ongoing: This card ability stays active throughout the entire game once the card is in play – you can find this keyword on cards such as Wong and Ant-Man.
• On Reveal: This card ability activates as soon as you reveal it to your opponent, regardless of if you played it or it ended up in play via an effect like Jubilee – you can find this effect on cards like Scorpion or Thor.
• No Ability: Some cards have no abilities – they just have cool flavour text, and can get bonuses from Washington D.C. or Patriot – you can find this on cards such as Hulk or Shocker.

Can I battle against my friends?

Yes you can! The new mode “Battle Mode” can be used to invite any player to a 1v1 match by sharing a one time use code generated when you launch the mode. This mode functions a bit differently than the normal game mode.
Each player will start with 10 hp, listed under their avatars. The cube system from the normal mode now removed hp at the end of the game, rather than cubes. Both players will battle in back to back matches until one player has 0 health left. During subsequent rounds, players cannot change decks and are both locked into the one they choose.

Some locations say “Cards can’t be added here” and some say “Cards can’t be played here” – what’s the difference?

If a location says that cards cannot be “added”, it’s going to prevent anything from ending up there – you can’t move Nightcrawler there, Squirrel Girl won’t put any squirrels there, and many more. However, if a location says card cannot be “played” here, you simply can’t play cards from your hand there, you’ll still be able to move your Nightcrawler into it, or send a tiger over there with White Tiger.

When the season resets, what happens to my rank?

Once a new season starts, you should see your rank drop by 30 ranks from your CURRENT rank, not your highest. This is always rounded down, so while Rank 100 will fall to Rank 70, Ranks 91-99 will reset to Rank 60.

Why can’t I collect my ranked rewards for ranks I’ve already achieved?

Play 10 games and you’ll be able to claim your ranked rewards.

At what level will I finally have all the cards?

At the moment, most players appear to complete their collections somewhere between CL 30000 and CL 3750. This is subject to change based on new cards being added, and every player having a different progression path.

Is there any safety nets for my rank?

Once you reach Rank 10, or Rank 100, you won’t be able to drop below them again. Everything in the middle is fair game, so may the odds be ever in your favour!

Is there anywhere I can view all the cards and locations?

Absolutely, we’ve got you covered.

• Cards: HERE
• Locations: HERE
• Variants: HERE
• Card Backs: HERE

What is Conquest Mode?

Conquest mode is the newest mode added to Marvel Snap. It functions the same way battle mode does, except you won’t need a friend to invite. Instead, it will matchmake you to an opponent!
Conquest is separated into several ranks: Proving Grounds, Silver, Gold, and Infinite. Proving Grounds has unlimited entries to play, but the other ranks require tickets to compete. Beating the Proving Grounds will award 1 Silver ticket. Winning 2 games in Silver with no losses will award 1 Gold ticket. Winning 3 games with no losses in Gold will award 1 Infinity ticket. Winning 5 games in the infinity bracket with no losses will award you with am infinity border for the avatar you won the final game with.
Each game you win will also award you with Conquest tokens, which can be used in the Conquest shop! Each season you will get a new shop to purchase unique rewards.
For a detailed breakdown of Conquest you can check out our guide, as well as our guide on how to be successful in Conquest!

What happens to leftover tickets or Conquest tokens when a season ends?

All leftovers will be converted into boosters for a single card once the new season begins.

What are bundles?

Bundles are time-limited offers avaliable for Gold or money. They often offer unique variants, currency, tokens, avatars, and boosters. Any variants in a bundle are only avaliable during their bundle run, and will not be avaliable again after it leaves the shop.
If you aren’t sure what bundles are worth buying, you can check out our monthly breakdown of upcoming and current bundle offers!

What happens if I buy a variant from a bundle that includes a card I don’t own?

If you don’t own the base card for a variant you buy, you can gain access to the card early! You will still unlock the base card later in the collection track.

What are Spotlight caches?

Spotlight caches are the newest addition to Marvel snap. Their mechanics are a bit complicated, so make sure to read this article to get a breakdown of the ins and outs of the new system!
In short, Spotlight caches are the new primary way to collect new cards in Series 4/5. They appear in your collection track every 10 caches. Each week, what is avaliable in the caches will change.

Can I get all contents of a Spotlight Cache?

It is possible, though it will either be very expensive on your wallet, or you will have to sacrifice several weeks of Caches to open a bunch during one week. Basically, if you complete all of your daily missions each week and use credits from ranked and Conquest rewards, you can average unlocking 1 Spotlight cache per week. That means if you want to open all 4 rewards (or all 8 if you want the variants) you have to save 4-8 weeks worth of caches!

How do I know if I should use a Spotlight Cache to get a featured card?

Each week we post a guide that will recommend if you should open Caches that week or not. Each edition is posted before the new set goes live, so you have plenty of time to decide if it’s worth it for you.

What are weekend missions?

Weekend missions are special challenges that appear from 11pm est on Friday and last until 11pm est on Monday. These missions will challenge the player to win games using the season pass card, the newly released card, and to win games in general. Each week the rewards may change, but will often offer tokens, credits, gold, or season pass xp. If you don’t own the cards featured in the mission, you cannot complete the mission.

I want to chat with more Marvel Snap players, how do I get involved in the community?

I’d suggest hopping into both the Marvel Snap Zone Discord Server and the Official Marvel Snap Discord Server – alternatively, hit us up on Twitter @MarvelSnapZone and we’ll be happy to chat Snap with you!