Marvel Snap Free-to-Play (F2P) Guide: Is it Pay to Win (P2W)?

Marvel Snap is a free-to-play (F2P) game, but how friendly is it to players that want to start without having to pay? Can players collect cards and be competitive without running into a wall? In this guide, we will explain how Marvel Snap’s monetization system works and how to navigate around it. We also outline a lot this information in our FAQ.

Season Pass

First up, we have the Marvel Snap Season Pass. This is now an evergreen feature of F2P games that reward players for playing regularly. They typically are almost required for players to spend on to be able to compete at a higher level and be able to gain as many resources as you are able to.

In Marvel Snap, the each Season generally runs from the first Monday of each month to the next. Season Pass rewards you with a variety of different loot that is going to be helpful for progressing your account. The October 2022 pass for example gives you:

Much of the rewards are locked behind the Premium Season Pass, which is able to be purchased with cash only starting at $9.99 USD or Premium+ at $14.99 for an extra 10 levels, as it’s one of the primary forms of monetization in the game. The money is “returned” in the form of the Premium currency, Gold.

The major incentive for players for purchasing the Season Pass is getting early access to the new card introduced with the season – for example, Miles Morales in October 2022. This new card becomes available for players to collect after two seasons, when it becomes added to Pool 3 of Mystery Card rewards (more on this below). See below table for examples:

An issue can arise when an overpowered Season Pass exclusive card is released, giving players who pay an advantage for two whole months. Generally however, this is where the developers have struck a nice balance. These exclusive cards have not been too meta-defining (if not a little underwhelming), with Wave being the most impactful card out of the lot.

Another bonus for the enfranchised players that want to keep playing (by completing Missions, Weekly Challenges, and so on). Season Caches give minor rewards to players for Level 51 and beyond after completing the main Season Pass track.

Gold, Credits, and Boosters

There are three main currencies in Marvel Snap: Gold, Credits, and Boosters. We will go over how these currencies are used and related in the subsequent sections of the guide.

• Gold is the “Premium” currency that can be purchased with money to purchase variants, Credits, and Missions.
• Credits are the “Free” currency that is used to upgrade cards, which has a limitation on how much players can purchase, earn and store.
• Boosters are also used to upgrade cards, with no limitation on how many you can earn and store.

Upgrading and Collecting Cards

Most players will be focusing on the card collection aspect of the game. Marvel Snap is probably one of the most free-to-play friendly games in this regard as the team at Second Dinner have made the vow that every card will be obtainable F2P in some way or another. For more detailed information on its progression system, check out our dedicated guide:

Cards are simply obtained by progressing through your Collection Levels by upgrading the rarity of your cards. The Booster and Credit cost is outlined below and in our upgrade guide:

No sets, expansions, or random card packs to buy. Mystery Card rewards are selected from a pool that widens until you’re able to obtain all the cards:

All of these cards are obtained free-to-play, with upgrading your Collection Level being simply tied to upgrading your cards with Boosters and Credits that are easily obtainable as a free-to-play player just simply by playing the game, upgrading cards, and completing missions. As we can also see, getting to new cards and variants and upgrading them from Common to Uncommon 50% more efficient, so try to upgrade all your cards by playing them!

Credits will therefore be the major bottleneck as they are required to upgrade your cards and progress your Collection Level. It also has a limit on how much you can buy from the Store, earn from Missions, and store (5000 maximum).

Players are given the option to use Gold to purchase more Credit to speed up the collection progress. In addition, the purchases for Gold are limited at purchasing an additional 700 Credits per day, reseting at 8 PM PST.

We are also given the option to purchase Boosters with Fast Upgrades that are given in unlimited amounts just for playing the game, and obviously this is not recommended unless necessary.

In essence, you can buy faster progress with money, but it only goes so far – just playing will be the best bang for your buck.

Weekly Challenge, Missions, and Ranked Rewards

Playing Marvel Snap regularly, completing Missions, and climbing the ranked ladder will also grant you Credits and Gold:

• Weekly Challenges are based on the number of Missions you complete each week, reseting on Monday 8 PM PST. The rewards are divided in increments of 5 Missions, up to 25 Missions.
• 2 Marvel Snap Missions are given every 8 hours and players can store up to 6. It grants Credits and Season Pass XP.
• 2 Missions can be refilled with 120 Gold (one normal and one Hard, for a total of 150 Credits), and this is the recommended way of spending Gold as it also grants a bit of Season Pass XP (that can also translates into additional Season Caches, as specified above).
• Ranked rewards grant Credits and Gold, and players must play at least 10 games to claim the rewards.

The best part is that the premium currency, Gold, can be earned without having to pay real money. Now that we’ve established that Gold can be used to purchase Credits, which in turn is used to progress your collection, let’s explore the other use of Gold.

Variants and the Daily Offer

Variants have a different artwork compared to its Base Card version, but their abilities or stats are not changed in any way. However, they are treated as an independent card on its own – which means they can be upgraded separately as well to progress your account more easily.

As a free-to-play player, you’ll also get a few variant cards here and there via Mystery Variant rewards, in the Season Pass and as you climb your Collection Level, but other than that you won’t be able to aim for specific ones that you like the look of. You’ll be relying on RNG to grace you with some pretty pictures of ones that you like through the Daily Offer section of Marvel Snap’s shop. Variants are categorized into Rare or Super Rare, having a different Gold cost:

It is important to note two things about variants:

• Variants offered to players (rewards or Daily Offer) are chosen from Base Cards that the players already own, never for new cards that they are yet to own.
• Super Rare variants only show up in the Daily Offer, never as rewards.

All in all, Variants are intended to be Marvel Snap’s primary form of monetization going forward, so players can look forward to some really cool looking ones (check them all out here!), which you will be able to further bling up via Infinity Splits!

Nexus Events

Nexus Events are a discontinued form of monetization that allowed players to be able to purchase loot boxes to have a chance of obtaining newly released cards. After negative community feedback, it was removed from the game and full refunds issued to players. As a result, players who played during this time received a free Jane Foster – a Pool 3 card! Read more about the news here.

Marvel Snap plans to introduce another way of releasing new cards every week outside of the Season Pass. The details are yet to be announced.

Collector Tokens and the Token Shop

Card collection in Marvel Snap is semi-random, and as we approach Pool 2 and 3, players may have to wait a long time before being able to play with a deck that they really want. Some cards are key to its archetype, such as Patriot, Death, Hela, Sera, Mister Negative, and many other cool cards with unique effects.

To give players an ability to target specific cards for their collection, Marvel Snap is developing a new system called the Collector Tokens. It will be a new free currency earned on the Collection Level Road that can be used to unlock the cards you want most in the Shop.

The Token Shop can features a card you don’t own every 8 hours. If you don’t have enough Tokens, players can freeze the shop to lock-in their targeted card. This isn’t meant to be the primary way to earn new cards, but being able to target the couple cards you want most should allow players to build their desired deck.

More information about Collector Tokens will be shared as we get closer to its release. In the meantime, check out the latest Marvel Snap Development Roadmap:

Conclusion

The game can be seen as quite generous in regards to the content that it gives you with little or no monetary investment. However, since the games are so quick, players that play a lot can quickly run out of incentives to play. Of course, Marvel Snap is still in its infancy so things are subject to change such as the upcoming Collector Tokens.

TL;DR:

• Upgrading a card or variant from Common to Uncommon is the most efficient
• Use Gold to refresh Missions to progress faster
• Do not buy Boosters with Fast Upgrade
• Season Pass cards can only be collected for free after 2 months
• Variants is intended to be Marvel Snap’s primary form of monetization

The Good:

• Variants are (mostly) cosmetic and Season Pass has decent value
• All cards available free-to-play (eventually) and all of them can be collected via grinding
• Gold obtainable via gameplay
• No Card “packs” to buy at all

The Bad:

• Credit bottleneck can come early for players; purchases for Gold are limited
• Card collection is semi-random and may have to wait a long time to obtain certain cards
• Season Pass cannot be purchased with Gold
• Some cards are exclusive in the Season Pass until they are added to the global card pool much later. This can be a problem if the card becomes too good