Marvel Snap Free-to-Play (F2P) Guide - May 2022

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.

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, each Season generally runs from the first week of each month to the start of the next month. Season Pass rewards you with a variety of different loot that is going to be helpful for progressing your account. The December 2023 Season Pass for example, gives you:

FreePremium
300 Gold900 Gold
2,300 Credits300 Credits
85 Boosters230 Boosters
1 Variants6 Variants
1 Title2 Titles
1 Card Back1 Card Back
3 Avatars
1 Season Pass Card
Season CacheSeason Cache

Some of the important 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, as well as extra credits.

The major incentive for players for purchasing the Season Pass is getting early access to the new card introduced with the season – for example, Sebastian Shaw in December 2023. This new card becomes available for players to collect the month after it premiers. When it becomes free to obtain, it launches as a Series 5 card and will be featured in a Spotlight Cache at a later date. See below table for examples:

SeasonCardAvailable W/TokensFirst Spotlight Release
August 2023DakenSeptember 2023November 2023
September 2023LokiOctober 2023November 2023
October 2023Elsa BloodstoneNovember 2023January 2024
November 2023Ms. MarvelDecember 2023Unknown
December 2023Sebastian ShawJanuary 2024Unknown

An issue can arise when an overpowered Season Pass exclusive card is released, giving players who pay an advantage for a whole months. Generally however, this is where the developers have struck a nice balance. Often times, season pass cards are fairly balanced. Sometimes, however, cards can be a bit too strong and dominate the meta. Developers have balanced cards both during and after their season pass release to make them more fair.

If you play frequently and complete a season pass, you can obtain additional rewards past level 50. Season Caches give minor rewards to players for Level 51 and beyond after completing the main Season Pass track.

% RateReward
5%Mystery Variant
25%50 Credits
10%100 Credits
5%200 Credits
25%10 Boosters
10%15 Boosters
5%20 Boosters
10%50 Gold
5%100 Gold

Gold, Credits, and Boosters

There are four main currencies in Marvel Snap: Gold, Credits, Boosters, and Tokens. 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.
  • Tokens are used to purchase new cards.

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:

RarityBooster CostCredit CostCollection Level
Common
Uncommon5 Boosters25 Credits+1
Rare10 Boosters100 Credits+2
Epic20 Boosters200 Credits+4
Legendary30 Boosters300 Credits+6
Ultra40 Boosters400 Credits+8
Infinity50 Boosters500 Credits+10

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

Pool #Collection Level #Card #DecksTier List
Series OneCollection Level 18 – 21446 cardsDecksTier List
Series TwoCollection Level 222 – 47425 cardsDecksTier List
Series ThreeCollection Level 486+76 cardsDecksTier List

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 (10000 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, resetting at 2 PM EST. This basically means you can pour money into the game to level up faster, but it won’t get the chance to learn the game like the devs intended.

We are also given the option to purchase Boosters with Fast Upgrades in the shop. This let’s you bypass needing boosters to upgrade a card. This isn’t recommended to use though, since as mentioned before, credits are hard to come by and wasting them will slow your progress.

Weekly Challenge, Missions, and Ranked Rewards

Weekly Challenge

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

NameRewards
Weekly Challenge1350 Credits
200 Gold
2000 Season Pass XP
Mission50 Credits
25 Season Pass XP
Mission (Hard)100 Credits
50 Season Pass XP
Rank 10 (Iron)100 Credits
Rank 20 (Bronze)20 Boosters
Rank 30 (Silver)200 Credits
Rank 50 (Platinum)250 Credits
Rank 60 (Diamond)300 Credits
Rank 80 (Omega)500 Credits
Rank 90 (Galactic)500 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 aside from bundles, 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

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:

RarityCost
Rare (full list)700
Super Rare (full list)1200

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 in mystery variant rewards.

Second Dinner has also added 2 new variant types: Ultimate variants and Spotlight Variants. These are a bit different than regular variants. Ultimate variants are only available in the token shop and cost 5,000 tokens for 1 variant. Currently, there are no differences in these variants to others aside from costing more. Developers have said these ultimate variants will eventually get special effects like unique vfx, voice overs, and other unique effects to make their cost more worth it. Read more about Tokens and the Token Shop below.

Spotlight variants are only available during their premier week in a Spotlight Cache. Read more below for more details.

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!

Collector Tokens and the Token Shop

If you want to unlock a specific card, the Token shop is for you! As you progress though the collection track, you may randomly collect Collector Tokens. These are a special currency used to buy the game’s newest cards, as well as speed up progression on the game. For a detailed explanation on how Tokens work and how to use them, check out our Token Shop Guide!

Spotlight Caches

Spotlight caches are the game’s newest method of obtaining new cards. Each week, players who are 500 collection level and up can gain access to a unique lineup of 3 new cards and a random card. These cards are pre-selected by Second Dinner in advance, and feature the week’s newly released card (minus season pass cards on their release week), as well as 2 other Series 4 or Series 5 cards. Players can collect a Spotlight Key every 120 levels, which can be used to open a Spotlight Cache and randomly get one of the 4 card rewards.

If you already own a card featured that week, the card will be replaced by a unique variant that is only avaliable during that Spotlight week. After the week is over, the base card will still be available in the token shop or in future spotlights, but that variant won’t be avaliable again. This makes these variants a nice way to flex in a match, but are in no way impactful to a game.

If you want to know if a week is worth using Spotlight Keys on for the cards inside, we offer a weekly series that dives into each Spotlight cache to recommend if you “Cache in” or hoard your keys for a better week. For more detailed information on the Spotlight system, be sure to see our Spotlight guide!

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 the 1st month using Tokens.
  • Variants are intended to be Marvel Snap’s primary form of monetization

The Good:

  • Variants are entirely 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 later. This can be a problem if the card becomes too good

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CanadianAlfredo
CanadianAlfredo
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