New game mode leaked? Game files reveal plans for upcoming Tournament mode

At the end of the recent Developer Update video, Ben Brode teased a new competitive game mode that would be coming to Marvel Snap in the near future. Well, thanks to some excellent sleuthing by streamer Tobimaro, we now have a pretty good idea of what the game mode might be.

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Tickets & Rewards

Tobimaro was able to find multiple references to Tournaments in the game’s files. Such as here, in the link.xml file, which stores calls to most of the game’s functions:

    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.SetTotalHighWatermark" preserve="all" />
    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.SetTournamentLosses" preserve="all" />
    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.SetTournamentTickets" preserve="all" />
    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.SetTournamentWins" preserve="all" />
    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.SetWatermarkRewardsClaimed" preserve="all" />
    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.TournamentLossHex" preserve="all" />
    <type fullname="CubeUnity.App.Play.TournamentModeView" preserve="all" />

You might notice the one line that references tournament tickets? It looks like tournaments will be a game mode that requires a ticket to enter. I’m guessing these tickets will be given out as rewards occasionally, certainly from the Season Pass and maybe even the Collection Level. And yes, the tickets will likely also be sold in the Shop, as this line of code suggests (emphasis mine):

"Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_cell_base.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_cell_card_upgrades.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_cell_cards.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_cell_credits.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_cell_gold.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_cell_tickets.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_section_card_upgrades.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_section_credits.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Shop/Cells/shop_section_gold.prefab"

Tobimaro was even able to turn up a ticket icon in the game files on his device.

So it looks as if you will need to spend some currency to enter a tournament. But, as compensation, you will receive rewards based on how well you do. These will almost certainly include the usual rewards such as Credits, Gold and maybe variants. But we also know that Brode hinted at releasing cards via a new game mode and giving one out as a tournament reward would be a good way to do that.

The devs have stated they want to release roughly one new card a week and currently we have one released each month via the Season Pass, and it sounds like Nexus Events will give out two new cards a month, so that leaves Tournament mode giving away the fourth card each month. Perhaps, you get the new card your first tournament win each month.

How Tournaments Might Work

So how would the tournaments work? Unfortunately there aren’t any hints in the code as to how they would be structured. Tobimaro suggests that a line of code referencing CubeTournaments might mean it would be a “first player to 10 cubes, wins the tournament” kinda thing, similar to what was done on the reveal stream. But the word “Cube” shows up everywhere in the code, even on things which clearly don’t have anything related to cubes such as CubeGameAdmin and CubeBattlePass and CubeShop.

(My hunch is that this game was originally titled Marvel Cube and that the developers used Cube as a prefix to all their functions and now there is no way to switch it to Snap without a ton of wasted dev hours.)

How tournaments would work though, is all speculation at this point. One thing we do know is that they won’t use a draft format. In the video, Tobimaro shows a line of code that prompts the user to “Choose Deck”, so the deck you use in the tournament will almost certainly be constructed. Ben Brode also recently said that they have no immediate plans for a draft mode, but that it would be “cool [to do] some day”.

So that rules out a draft tournament, but as to any other info on how tournaments will be structured, we will likely have to wait for the official announcement to find out.

More Modes?

There was one other little nugget of info I found in the game files, which wasn’t mentioned in the video. Here we see references to the tournament mode button, in this line of code:

"Assets/Art/UI/Play/Buttons/btn_Match.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Play/Buttons/btn_Match_practice.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Play/Buttons/btn_Match_ranked.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Play/Buttons/btn_Match_solomode.prefab","Assets/Art/UI/Play/Buttons/btn_Match_tournament.prefab"

But, this code also hints at other unreleased game modes, including Practice and Solo Mode. We know the devs have promised a casual or unranked mode for people to play without having to risk cubes, which sounds like it would be Practice mode. Solo Mode would be something different though. Perhaps something coming a little farther down the road? Something with some story behind it, akin to Hearthstone’s Book of Heroes? We will have to wait and see.

Tournament mode seems all but confirmed, however, and the client looks like it has most of the necessary assets already in place (icons, localization, etc.), so I suspect it’s not too far off from releasing. I can’t wait to see what the team at Second Dinner has planned for this mode. Ben Brode called it his favorite way to play Snap competitively, so hopefully the player base will agree!

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What do you think of this planned tournament mode? How do you think it will work? Share your thoughts in the comments below or signup to our Discord server and continue the discussion there!