Marvel Snap Matchmaking Explained

Matchmaking inside of Marvel Snap is easily the topic we receive the most questions about here at the Marvel Snap Zone community. It’s importance to players in deciding when to progress, understanding who they’re playing against, and the overall mystery around how and why it works the way it does. Today, we’re going to break down what we know about the matchmaking system, and try to dispel some of the myths surrounding how it works!

It is important to remember that the exact matchmaking formula and algorithm are unknown and are subject to change by the developers. We work with information given from them via Developer Updates or Patch Notes, and data from our Marvel Snap Tracker. The original article and video is by HowlingMines, but will be kept up to date as more information becomes known and available.

What Do We Mean By “Matchmaking”

Matchmaking refers to the process of how the game finds you an appropriate opponent to play against. This applies to all game modes in Marvel Snap. The game doesn’t want you to be playing against unfair opponents, or accidentally creating an unpleasant play experience, and so it uses a variety of factors explained below to find the most suitable competitor to play against in a reasonable amount of time.

What Facts Do We Know About Matchmaking

The following statements are currently believed to be facts at time of writing. Where possible, we have confirmed this information with Teachers, Moderators and Development Team members inside the Official Marvel Snap Discord and provided a screenshot below:

– Matchmaking is Regional only, with the intention to evolve this to Global Matchmaking soon

Unsurprisingly, matchmaking is tied to regions in order to keep animations smooth, the game flowing, and create less stress on the game in it’s early stages. The devs managed to add global matchmaking to private battle mode matches, but have not been able to apply this feature to the full game yet.

This explains why you’ll see the same players on the ladder more regularly than you might imagine, or why you may play more bots at certain times of the day. Global matchmaking is currently in development and will follow once Second Dinner are sure that no major issues will be caused by it.

– Matchmaking is determined by three different factors: MMR (Match Making Rating), Collector Level, and Rank on the ladder.

Matchmaking is neither a precise art, or particularly simple. The three factors that play a role in deciding your opponent are:

• MMR: MMR (or Match Making Rating) is a HIDDEN number that the Marvel Snap game keeps a track of. This number goes up when you beat players, and down when you lose to players. Your MMR will increase or decrease more dramatically if you are beating players the game believes are “better” than you, or losing to those it believes are “worse” than you. It will also increase (or decrease) the more depending on if more cubes were at stake in the match.
• Collector Level: This is a big one – Matchmaking DOES NOT care what “Pool” or Series of cards you are currently in, just what Collector Level you are currently at. There is a range of levels the game sees as “okay to pair you against”, with this range increasing the longer you stay in the matchmaking queue.
• Rank: Every player has a “rank” on the ladder – that’s what the cubes you’re playing for add to! – resulting in a number and corresponding rank. These go from Rank 1: Recruit all the way to Rank 100: Infinity. Your current rank is taken into account when pairing you against an opponent, and much like Collector Level, it is believed the acceptable difference in Rank will grow and decrease based on the other two factors and time in the matchmaking queue. Developers have mentioned that the matchmaking will search for opponents up to -30 or +30 ranks from yours.

If you need more information about the Ranked Ladder, we have a full guide here:

At time of writing, developer comments seem to imply MMR has the most influence on matchmaking.

With the April 18, 2023 patch, players that reach Infinite Rank will only match against other Infinite Rank players. Furthermore, starting from the April 2023 Season, once you reach Infinite rank a snapshot of your MMR is taken and will not change until the following season. This means you cannot intentionally lose to face weaker opponents or win so much that you will only face bots!

– “Waiting Around” At The End Of A Pool Of Cards WILL NOT Stop You From Playing Against Cards From The Next Pool.

Because your collection level is NOT the only factor in matchmaking, sitting at a lower collection level intentionally is by no means guaranteed to stop you playing against people with more or less “meta” decks than you, or cards from a Pool of Cards you are not currently in.

Additionally, Second Dinner have made it clear they don’t envision this tactic as following the designs they had about how players progress and play the game, and have developed tools and techniques to “encourage” people to progress as intended. While we do not currently have any details about what these techniques are, this statement is more than enough of a reason to throw the myth of “waiting to enter Pool Three” firmly in the bin.

– The Cards You Have, Deck Construction, And The Cards You Choose To Play Have NO EFFECT On Matchmaking.

Another commonly quoted belief in the undergrowth of Reddit, the Development Team have confirmed that at no point in your Marvel Snap journey does the deck you’re playing, the cards you have collected, or the amount of cards you choose to play from any Pool of Cards have any effect whatsoever on your matchmaking experience.

Of course, if you are playing a popular deck (like from our Tier List or Meta Stats) you are likely to face a similar popular deck too. And if a certain deck is more popular, players are more likely to tech against it. This would be like if destroy cards are heavy in the meta, you will either see lots of Destroy decks, or decks that use Armor or Cosmo to counter them.

Conquest and Battlemode Matchmaking

With the game’s newest modes Conquest and Battlemode, there are a few new rules to matchmaking. Battlemode is how you can directly challenge a player to a 1v1 match. If you participate in this mode, results will not effect your MMR or your rank in any way. So feel free to use this mode to experiment!

Conquest mode is a bit more complex. The basic premise uses the ranked system to find you a match, but will change depending on what bracket you are playing in. The Proving Grounds will be the closest matchmaking to ranked mode. As you progress into Silver, then to Gold, and finally to Infinity, the matchmaking widens and removes many of the filters to allow you to more likely find an opponent. The longer your que times run, the wider the search parameters go.

It is currently unknown if playing Conquest will effect your overall MMR. Conquest does keep track of how many wins you have in a row, or the number of losses in a row. This means if you have a hot streak in Conquest matches, your opponent’s will get tougher. To elaborate on this, if you play Silver mode and are on the bottom of the climb, you will be aimed to match against players who are also at the bottom. Once you win, you will be matched against players who also won their silver bottom game. The same goes for Gold with its 3 tiers, and Infinity with its 5 tiers. You cannot face a player if they are in a separate bracket than you are.

These extra rules are why matchmaking slowly expands to not care about MMR, Collection Level, or Rank as much. The game needs to find you an opponent, and bots are not present in the Gold and infinity ranks.

Developers Tease the Future Infinite Rank Improvements:

For most of us, the climb to Infinite Rank has been our peak achievement… and we have great news! We’re completely revamping Infinite Rank so your experience doesn’t end at Infinite – it’s just the beginning! We want to create an exciting and fair battleground for our most skilled players to compete on the Infinite Rank Leaderboard. Once players reach Infinite Rank, they are separated into their own ecosystem that will highlight two important numbers:

• Skill Rating Score: This score is your personal skill rating score; it’s similar to your matchmaking rating. You’ll be able to see how your skill rating score changes after each match. If you’re more interested in increasing your personal skill from season to season, this is the number for you.
• Leaderboard Rank: Your friend has always claimed that they’re the Best MARVEL SNAP Player – well, now we’ll find out. This is the leaderboard number based on the ranking order of each Infinite player’s skill rating score.

We’re fine-tuning the experience and visuals for the new Infinite Rank ecosystem and currently scoping out the work, but we’re hoping to release it as soon as possible! More details on timing soon

Closing Thoughts

There’s a lot of smokescreen around Marvel Snap Matchmaking, and understandably so, given it’s a factor of the game most players really have no reason to have to involve themselves in and know the intricate details about. As a result, many myths about the system and how it works have began to pollute the community, causing misinformation to spread and many players to wrongfully complain about factors that either simply don’t exist, or play no part in the matchmaking experience. Hopefully, with this breakdown, we’ll be able to help in putting some of those rumors to bed.

Have we missed anything important in this article? Know something we don’t, or disagree with what you’ve read? Feel free to join our community Discord to let us know, or come and talk on Twitter over at Marvel Snap Zone.