Marvel Snap August 2023 (Big in Japan) Bundles Guide – Value and Comparison Chart

The upcoming Big in Japan August 2023 Season won’t be great for F2P players, but it will feature a huge number of good bundles for those willing to spend real money. Thus, the trend of polarizing player experiences when buying bundles (which started a couple of months ago) continues. Let’s analyze how it happened and which bundles are worth your attention, considering that an unscheduled patch was released in the first few days of August that changed some of the bundles and made most of them better. Keep in mind that contents, costs, and dates are yet to be confirmed and are not final until announced or released.

How the Chart Works

August Season Changes

After the recent changes to the card acquisition system, we learned a lot of new things, including card release schedule and future bundles. We now know that over 3 seasons (July through September) we will get a total of 4 new Series 4 cards. Given that a player gets between 2,000 and 3,000 Collector’s Tokens per 4 week season, depending on whether they bought a Season Pass, and taking into account the weekend challenges cashback from getting new cards, it turns out that a player can roughly afford to buy Series 4 cards on their release dates if a player only spend Tokens on them and don’t spend gold at all.

Therefore, it would be correct to assume that bundle purchases should be used specifically to get Series 5 cards (and obviously cosmetics). That’s why starting in August, the value calculation will be based on spending extra collector tokens on Series 5 cards, rather than Series 4 cards, for which you will almost always have Tokens to spend. A side effect of this is an increase in the value of Credits relative to Tokens, compared to past models used to calculate value. This made a few bundles containing credits a little better than expected.

You can also find previous seasons’ comparison charts here:

Pro Bundle Mk. II

As expected, the extremely expensive bundle gives an extreme amount of value in the number of cards. If you buy this bundle, you can expect 1.81 new cards when you spend Collector’s Tokens on Series 5 cards.

When you consider the difference in the number of cards, it turns out that for $100, this bundle will get you as many as 0.98 more cards than spending that much money to buy Token Tuesdays, as that is the best basic way to get cards that doesn’t depend on in-game shop offers. Other values are also on the high side: 0.78 Tokens per Gold (in equivalent) or 54.45 Tokens per Dollar. All in all, the Pro Bundle Mk. II is a very good “whale” bundle.

Stegronosaurus Wrecks

The Stegronosaurus Wrecks bundle was originally supposed to contain 5,000 Credits, but just recently Second Dinner changed this bundle and it now contains 12,000 Credits. And that’s a big deal!

This bundle now gives you 0.18 more cards than spending the same amount of gold on Token Tuesdays. Also its progress value is now at 1.3. Although the Cosmetic and Tokens per Gold values are extremely low, suddenly this is the best bundle for Gold this month, which is pretty strange to say the least.

Another important feature of the bundle is that it contains a variant for Stegron, which is a Series 4 card. So if you don’t have Stegron in your collection, this bundle technically has even more value in terms of card difference, which would then be 0.67 cards (taking the Series 4 card as half of the Series 5 card). Keep in mind that you’ll still have to get the base version of this card in the future to get ultimate variants for Stegron, and that Stegron is a pretty unplayable card in the current meta.

The fact that this bundle gives value in the form of Credits that convert to new cards is unusual compared to the bundles we’re used to. However, for the purpose of getting new cards, the Stegronosaurus Wrecks bundle is a good fit. But keep in mind that the Cosmic Wildfire bundle was even better than this one, so better bundles are still possible in the future and you should make a decision about whether it is worth spending 7,500 gold on this bundle or not.

Additionally, there is a non-zero chance that the September bundles will also be changed. But until that happens, the Stegronosaurus Wrecks bundle holds the title of the best bundle for Gold in both August and September

The Doctor is Tin

The Doctor is Tin bundle is just another great bundle for dollars. Its datamined version was originally $5 and then later changed to $20. This was probably a mistake from the start; at $5, it would have given way too much value for the cost. Still, even at $20, it’s a nice bundle with a value of 0.98 Tokens per Gold (in equivalent), a Progress Value of 1.7, and a card difference compared to buying Token Tuesdays of 0.16. There’s nothing to add here. The deal is probably worth it, and you’ll get some resources of each kind — with Tokens prioritized.

Heroes for Hire

The tradition of releasing bundles with cosmetics from past seasons will come to an end in three months, as these bundles only include content from beta seasons. Nevertheless, the Heroes for Hire bundle will become available for purchase in August with cosmetic content from the August 2022 season. Keep in mind that this offer is significantly worse than a season pass because you don’t get the card, 900 Gold, or Mystery variants that were part of the 2022 season pass. The Heroes for Hire bundle has a cosmetic value of 5.5, so if you are in love with at least two of the variants, you’re in the sweet spot.

My Hero Arachnia

My Hero Arachnia has also been changed since its first appearance in the game’s files. It now costs 4,000 Gold (instead of 3,200) and contains 5,500 credits (instead of 4,000). Ultimately this made the bundle slightly better, just enough to make it roughly equal in value to Token Tuesdays and regular in-game shop prices.

Just know that while you won’t get value in the number of new cards directly, but rather through the conversion of Credits to Spotlight Caches, you won’t lose value by buying this bundle compared to Token Tuesdays.

Full Charge

The Full Charge bundle has surprisingly been changed recently. It now contains 300 Tokens rather than 1,000 and 2,000 Credits rather than 500. So now it’s not a clone of The Doctor is Tin bundle with different cosmetics, but a completely different bundle.

It has 0.53 Token per Gold value (in equivalent), a Card Difference Value of 0.18, a Progress Value of 1.8, and a Cosmetic Value of 0.8. Essentially it’s still very similar and mathematically even better than the The Doctor is Tin bundle. But the way to get new cards here is different, through a larger number of Credits than through Tokens. Sometimes it will be worse, sometimes it will be better, but ultimately the value is identical to the Doctor is Tin bundle.

Death Becomes Her

The Death Becomes Her bundle has extremely high values: a Progress Value of 1.8, 1.05 Tokens per Gold (in equivalent) or 73.75 Tokens per Dollar, and a very good Card Difference Value at 0.73 extra cards compared to buying Token Tuesdays. This bundle is a must buy for anyone who wants to spend that much money, mostly because there are no other great deals coming up anytime soon.

One-Punch Women

One-Punch Women is another expensive bundle for Gold that offers not too much for its cost. The total value of this bundle is 1.5 with a Progress Value of 1.1. In other words, the One-Punch Women bundle, as well as the other August bundles for Gold, is hardly better than buying the same items in the shop. However, getting 0.01 more cards when buying this bundle compared to Token Tuesdays makes the bundle slightly better than it may seem at first glance.

Getting cards via Collector’s Tokens and getting cards via Spotlight Caches are two different ways to get collection progress. And this bundle offers the second one. These ways have their pros and cons, but in general converting Credits to Spotlight Caches it’s not a bad alternative for getting new cards, you just need to manage Spotlight Chests wisely.

So for those who want to save up some Spotlight Caches before the new card releases – this might be a good choice for spending Gold.

Hail Hydraulics

Once again, we have a very nice bundle that sells for real money. With a progress value of 2.4 and 0.38 extra cards compared to buying Token Tuesdays, this bundle is pretty great. It’s also the most profitable bundle of the month, judging by the amount of Gold you get for each dollar. Chances are, if you’re going to spend around $25 this month, it’s worth buying this particular bundle as opposed to one of the $20 bundles.

It’s also worth noting that this bundle was also among the changed bundles – its number of Credits was changed from 3,000 to 4,000. Honestly it was good even with 3,000 Credits, and 4,000 Credits makes it even better for its price

2 Cute 2 Furious

The 2 Cute 2 Furious bundle is a bad bundle for Gold, since you get 0.01 fewer cards than buying Token Tuesdays, and the other values are also very low.

The low price should only tempt those who like the included variants, since the cosmetic value is quite good, which means you get a nice progression as a bonus. However, for those who want to get a lot of progress value for every Gold spent, this bundle is pretty bad. In this case you better save up your Gold or buy a Token Tuesday bundle.

Token Tuesday Bundles

Token Tuesday bundles are still a good choice for converting Gold to Cards. The only difference from last month is that the first Token Tuesday bundle in August (01.08.2023 – 02.08.2023) will provide more value for a lower price. So that one should be a priority for you.

As before, we still recommend you choose other Gold bundles that offer more value in the number of cards they provide. However, considering that there will be no insanely good bundles for Gold in August and September, choosing Token Tuesdays will be a good choice. Alternatively, you should consider saving up your Gold until October if you want to utilize it as efficiently as possible.

Mystery Pack Bundles

The $5 Mystery Packs are pretty disappointing, both compared to the rest of the Mystery Packs and compared to other bundles for real money, the value of which have increased significantly in recent months. Six months ago we could probably recommend them for purchase, but now they don’t stand up to any competition when comparing value per dollar.

On the other hand, the $10 and $20 Mystery Pack bundles are much better due to the included Collector’s Tokens. In terms of value, these bundles are very similar to Token Tuesdays if you buy them with dollars. However, as with the $5 bundles, their value is lower than other bundles for real money. Therefore, don’t consider high-priced Mystery Packs as priority bundles for purchase. They’re only worth looking at if you’re a “whale” and can afford to buy all the bundles to get the maximum number of cards.

Booster Pack Bundles

Booster Packs, just as before, are too bad to see them as a way to speed up progress and get more cards. Just don’t buy them, especially with the addition of Conquest mode, where you can easily get lots of boosters in Proving Grounds without risking anything.

Conclusion

I think if you read the article, we’ll have similar conclusions. August is a great month for “whales” and “dolphins”, i.e. for those who want to spend a lot and a moderate amount of money on the game, respectively. And it’s also a terrible month for F2P players and those who only buy season passes. The difference in value for these two groups is simply huge, and that cannot be considered a coincidence.

The first thing that comes to mind when trying to understand the intention of the developers is that since we got an extremely good Cosmic Wildfire bundle in July, players simply won’t have enough Gold to buy another great bundle. However, while this assumption makes some sense, it does not correlate with bundle prices in August. We still see bundles for 7,500 and 5,600 Gold, as well as cheaper bundles, but none of them, at any cost, are good enough to recommend for purchase — let alone having similar value to real money bundles.

Especially since it’s crucial to give players the opportunity to catch up with others in such an economy system. If someone couldn’t buy an insane bundle in July because they didn’t have enough Gold, why not give them the opportunity to buy another, maybe slightly worse bundle in August? What if someone skipped the Cosmic Wildfire bundle because they didn’t play at this time or didn’t like the cosmetics?

I don’t see any reason to release bad bundles in such quantity for such a long time. After all, we know from datamines that this trend will last until at least early October. This is definitely a mistake, and it makes the experience of buying bundles extremely polarized depending on whether the player spends real money or not. The lack of in-game systems to catch up with the others implies that such a role should be assigned to regular bundles to at least smooth out the experience for players who play without significant investment and don’t want to feel as though they are constantly falling behind.

The only option for developers without significant modernization of in-game systems would be to simply give players different bundles with different values each season, rather than putting players in the “save Gold or spend dollars” trap.

We, the players, can only either rejoice at the great offers in the shop (for those who spend money) or persevere and hoard Gold while waiting for better times (for F2P players and season pass buyers). And yes, the changes made the week before the start of the season certainly smoothed things out a bit, but didn’t solve the situation completely. However, I believe that the appearance of an unscheduled patch that changes only the bundles and nothing else is a good sign that shows that we are being heard and there is a chance that things are changing in favor of the players. So let’s see if and how exactly the bundles will change in September.