Spotlight Caches – Details, Drop Rates and Card Acquisition Changes

After the introduction of the Collector’s Tokens system, Second Dinner confirmed that this is a temporary solution to the card acquisition system after completing Series 3. A new system featuring Spotlight Caches was announced today, and it will be live with the next major patch on July 11th, 2023. Let’s take a look at what Spotlight Caches will be and what will change in the Marvel Snap economy. Below is the official announcement, and you should also expect a more in-depth review and the maths behind this change from us later on. In the meantime, let us know what you think in the comments!

What is the Spotlight Cache?

Spotlight Cache is a brand new way to acquire newly released cards, Series 4 cards, and Series 5 cards. Spotlight Cache system will appear after you’ve passed Collection Level (CL) 500. A Spotlight Cache will replace Collector’s Caches and Collector’s Reserves every 120CL. This means that one in every 10 Collector’s Reserves are becoming Spotlight Caches.

Why are Spotlight Caches so exciting? The answer is the CARDS! Each week, three different Series 4 and 5 cards will be featured – including the new card released that week! When you open a Spotlight Cache, you’re guaranteed to open one of those three cards, or a random S4/S5 card. If you already own one of the featured cards, the Spotlight Cache will instead feature a time-exclusive Spotlight Variant for the featured card. A picture is worth a thousand words, though, so here’s what it might look like for a week:

More Cards for More Players

You might be asking, “Why are you making this change?’. We want to bring more cards to more players – and this system helps make that possible for all players, no matter where they’re at in their journey. Whether you’re still working through Series 3 or you have nearly all Series 4/5 cards, you’ll see an increase in cards earned with the change to Spotlight Cache. If you’re a free-to-play player that completes your Daily Missions, you can expect to get a Series 4/5 card from your Spotlight Cache almost EVERY WEEK – this is a huge increase from having to grind 6000 Tokens to get a single Series 5 card all month in the old system!

Every Card Release is Impactful and Accessible

One of the main feedback topics we’ve seen is that players didn’t feel they were able to enjoy or engage with new card releases each week. We definitely want to address this! Previously, we saw a very small portion of players able to get the new card each week. But, with Spotlight Cache, ~25% of players who finish their Daily Missions can get the new card each week – for free! This is going to bring more diversity to the decks you’re playing and seeing each week. Get ready to experiment in the Proving Grounds, build brand new decks, and face off against new cards while ranking up!

Your Collection, Your Way

We know you like to target which cards you’ll add to your collection – this isn’t being removed. Featured Series 4 or Series 5 cards in Spotlight Cache give you the perfect opportunity to add cards you’ve been looking for to your collection. Have you been hoping to get the mighty Thanos to lead your growing army of heroes and villains? When Thanos is being featured in the Spotlight Cache, opening one that week gives you 1 in 4 chance to earn Thanos! Opening another one will give you 1 in 3 chance, and if you open 4, you are guaranteed to get all the featured Series 4/5 cards that week – including Thanos!

While the Collection Level Track and Spotlight Cache system will be your primary source for new cards to add to your collection; Collector’s Tokens and Token Shop will still exist as a back-up support system for unlocking targeted cards. As part of this change, we’re increasing the overall availability of cards, decreasing the emphasis on Token Shop, and decreasing the Collector’s Tokens that players receive in other ways. If a card has been eluding you in the Spotlight Cache, spending Collector’s Tokens in the Token Shop is another path to target the exact card you want. But, these won’t be your primary card acquisition tools, so spend them carefully and wisely!

Upgrade Cards to Get More Cards

We want to continue the excitement of progressing your Collection Score through the early Collection Level Track. For many established players, they missed the excitement of earning new cards in the Collection Level Track. So, we’re going back to our roots: upgrade cards to get more cards. We think this will be a much more enjoyable experience, provide clear goals, and again… bring more cards to more people!

We think the Spotlight Cache system will be a huge improvement to card acquisition for all MARVEL SNAP players. We’ve been talking about card acquisition changes for a while now and you’ve probably noticed a few changes while we’ve been exploring how to make this a better experience for all players. As always, this is an iterative process. and we plan on continuing to change things up and improve the system! Please keep sharing your thoughts and feedback so we can deliver on the forever game we believe MARVEL SNAP can be!

Main FAQ Section

1. What happens to saved Collector’s Caches and Collector’s Reserves when the change happens?

Any saved Collector’s Caches or Collector’s Reserves will be turned into Spotlight Caches at the appropriate rate once the new system is live.

2. How are Collector’s Caches and Collector’s Reserves changing?

Every 4 Collector’s Cache now contain:
– 2 x Series 3 or below cards
– 1×100 Tokens
– 1 x Credits Box that can contain 150 or 200 Credits
Every 9 Collector’s Reserve now contain:
– 2 x Series 3 or below cards
– 1 x 100 Tokens
– 3 x Credits Box that can contain 150 or 200 Credits (more chance of 200 compared to Cache)
– 3 x Cosmetic

3. Will Series 4 and Series 5 cards still appear in Collector’s Reserves?

All Series 4 and 5 cards are moving into the Spotlight Cache. Spotlight Cache replaces the current system and results in more cards for more players.

4. Are there fixed odds of finding a Series 4, Series 5, or Spotlight Variant in Spotlight Caches?

Think of the Spotlight Cache like a bag of four items. You pull out one at a time at random, each item having equal chance to be picked. You’ll have a 25% chance to get one of those, then a 33% chance to get one of the remaining options, then a 50% chance to get one of the remaining options, and finally a 100% chance to get the last item. Once the bag is empty, we fill it back up with four items. With Spotlight Cache release, whether something is S4, S5 or is a variant does not impact their drop chance. We want to see how this system plays out and continue to improve the system!

5. Will I know about Spotlight Cache rewards ahead of time?

We plan to announce the weekly Spotlight Cache reward pools at the start of each season. We hope that this will allow you to plan ahead and get excited for what’s coming in each season of MARVEL SNAP.

6. How does this interact with Flexible Series Drops?

This feature requires a healthy supply of Series 4 and 5 cards to function—more than our previous system could maintain over time. The recent reduction in Series Drop frequency for cards from Series 4 to Series 3 ensures that we can continue giving away this many cards through Spotlight Caches at this pace. We will announce any Series drop at least two weeks in advance of it happening. Since each of these announcements will precede a patch by two weeks, that’s a 6-week “safe” window to spend tokens on a card without it dropping.

Content Creator FAQ Seсtion

In addition to the FAQ made by Second Dinner, there was a Q&A session with Content Creators. Below is a list of questions and answers from that session.

1. To clarify how these caches rewards are distributed, are the rolls for new cards prioritized over the variants for the cards you have? In your example you used Thanos as your target so let’s use that. Let’s say in the featured cards for the week you have all of them besides Thanos. Will Thanos be in the first Spotlight Cache you open or will there be a chance you gain 360 CL and only pull variants in that time?

We’ll be launching Spotlight Caches with equal chances to get each of the rewards presented to you. So, in your example, you will have equal chance to get Thanos as you do any of the other variants. We want to see how this feels to our players as different people value different things and will be looking for different things in the Spotlight Caches. We’re going to be iterating and improving as we learn!

2. For free to play players that want a specific new card being added into the game that month, the best strategy seems to be to save your caches until you can get 4 spotlight caches at once to “guarantee” the new card. Is this system designed to encourage this behavior or was there a design focus on trying to use your spotlight cache every week?

Our goal is to get more cards, and more variety of cards, to more players. If we see that player behavior is leading down a path where players aren’t actually opening caches to get more cards or everyone has the same cards, we will want to make improvements to the system in different ways.

3. What happens to banked caches and reserves when the change happens?

Any banked Collector’s Caches or Collector’s Reserves will be turned into Spotlight Caches at the appropriate rate once the new system is live.

4. What happens if you open a spotlight cache and you already have all the featured cards and variants?

If you have all the featured cards and variants, the featured cards will be replaced with Premium Mystery Variants instead. You also will still have the 1 in 4 chance to get a Random S4/5 card in every Spotlight Cache refresh. If you open a Random S4/5 card that you already own, you will get a Premium Mystery Variant instead. (Premium Mystery Variants = Super Rare or Rare Variant, but NOT Pixel. These are a new variant type that will be releasing at the same time as Spotlight Cache.)

5. Since Flexible Series Drops are here to stay, Are there any more details that can be discussed on which cards stay up and series and which one drop besides pick-rate and power level? Are there other factors at play? It would be helpful for players to be able to predict which cards are likely to move down even if it’s different from the old rigid structure.

We’re going to need some time with the feature live to understand exactly how this system affects the speed of Series drops. Cards will drop to Series 3 less often than in the past to keep the system supplied, but we will also continue launching ~1/3 of our new cards straight to Series 4 and tuning how quickly we can drop Series 5 cards to Series 4.

6. Why is this an improvement when previously a player could get from 6,000 to 9,000 tokens a month and buy the cards they wanted? It seems to me that before the player could get more cards per month (including a series 4 card every 40 reserves) than with the new system.

Historically, players have been able to get about 6000 tokens and a Series 4 card over about a month, with every new card going into Series 5. If you are a player who owns everything at the start of the month in this context, the acquisition pattern would have been to do your missions all month and at the end of the month you end up with 1 of the of new S5 cards released that month. In the new system, you can either choose to take a shot at a new card coming out each week at 25% chance, or choose to take more shots at a set of featured cards and variants that you are interested in. If say there’s a specific new card you wanted that month, your average chance of getting it is actually significantly higher than 25% because everything you “miss” your odds improve. (1 in 4 on the first shot, 1 in 3 in the next etc). So instead of grinding all month and going to the token shop for 1 card, we expect you to get more than 1 new card each month with the new system, along with bunch of awesome time exclusive variants.

7. There have been mentions before that eventually caches/reserves will be “rolled” when you unlocked them in the collection track instead of when you open them (as it is currently the case). If that happens, it going to be more difficult to save up your caches for when you want to open a specific new card in the collection track. Is that update to the collection track still something the team is working on or has that feature been adjusted with this new spotlight system?

We are still considering that update to the collection track. Some amount of banking is okay, but we feel there’s such a thing as unhealthy amount of hoarding. We will be monitoring player behavior and make decisions accordingly!

8. With Token from the Collection Track being reduced to 400 Tokens per month (or 1200 if you have all series 3 cards) and There also being No Gold Available from the Track, are there other ways being added to help players gain back resources for bundles and tokens for the token shop?

We are excited about Spotlight Cache bringing more cards and more variety of cards to more players! We will continue to observe player behavior with the new card acquisition system and make adjustments through systems like Weekend Missions to respond to changes in Gold and Token economy. It is our hope that the generosity of this system will reduce the frequency with which players even feel compelled to use the token shop for new cards. That should feel like a rare treat in this world, rather than the default.

9. How are secondary cards being chosen with the new featured series card system? I worry that unpopular and underutilized cards will just end up being paired with exciting and hyped new cards.

We want each week’s offering to be just as exciting as the last, so we will endeavor to balance caches appropriately. However, our goal is also to keep Series 4 and 5 populated with our most exciting content, and in turn make Spotlight Caches more awesome on average. Cards that aren’t meeting that bar will eventually fall to Series 3 and become ineligible for Spotlight Caches.

10. Will this effect the rate at which cards are released or cards are leveled up in the future?

We don’t expect that Spotlight Cache system will impact how many new cards we’re planning to release per season. However, we’re always continuing to discuss and iterate about the game – including the right number of card to release each season!

11. Currently there is a Series 4 card pity system that works in the same way as the Spotlight Cache. Is the Spotlight Cache an additional feature or does it replace the current system?

All Series 4 and 5 cards are moving into the Spotlight Cache. Spotlight Cache replaces the current system and results in more cards for more players.

12. Are weekend missions for new series card going to be adjusted with this spotlight system? Since tokens are not going to be as important for getting new series cards, is the 1000 token reward for doing that weekend mission going to be more of a rarity or will it still be a nice way to get some token kickback for using a new card?

This is a huge change to players’ rewards structure. We want to make sure we’re improving card acquisition for all players. To do so, we’ll be monitoring and making adjustments to supporting systems like Weekend Missions to make sure it makes sense in the context of the new system!

13. Are there fixed odds of finding series 4, series 5 or variant in the spotlight cache? Ex. 33% series 4 33% series 5 33% variant.

Think of the Spotlight Cache like a bag of four items. You pull out one at a time at random, each item having equal chance to be picked. Once the bag is empty, we fill it back up with four items. With Spotlight Cache release, whether something is S4, S5 or is a variant does not impact their drop chance. We want to observe how this system plays out and continue to improve the system!

14. Is there any further plans to use this system to help players who have lapsed / left the game to catch back up? Maybe offering more of these boxes to returning players. I worry that even if this new system is good, players who have taken a break or left for good previously will still be worried about the ability to “catch up” after their time off.

We are excited about doing things to encourage lapsed players back! We don’t have any details to share at the time but that’s a great idea.

15. Are series 3 complete players still getting 100 tokens when they would have opened a series 3 card in a normal reserve?

Fallback token is now 50 Tokens if you have all Series 3 cards.

16. Does this also mean that players will have a 25% chance to unlock the Season Pass card in the first week of the season in the Spotlight Cache position?

During the first week of each season, we’ll be featuring three S4 or S5 cards. If you’ve been looking for an older S4/5 card, this is a great opportunity for you to find it.

17. Do we have a launch date for this?

We’re currently targeting to launch Spotlight Cache with the next patch.

18. Are these just the 700/1200 gold variants of those spotlight cards?

Our intention is that Spotlight Variants are going to be brand new variants of the Featured Cards that are time-exclusive. That means if you like these variants, they can only be obtained during the week they are featured in the Spotlight Cache or you can wait for them to eventually be added to the general pool – this is going to be a long time!

19. If you have all variants in the game already, what do you get if you open a spotlight reserve? Or these new variant type will be new variants and this is the only way to get them?

The featured Spotlight Variants are in the Spotlight Cache are all new and cannot be acquired any other way.

20. If I am collection complete and a new card is released, when I open the next spotlight reserve, am I not guaranteed to get the new card? May I still hit one of the variants?

For a collection complete player, their “set of 4” rewards in the Spotlight Cache will be:
– New Card
– Spotlight Variant of the 2nd featured card
– Spotlight Variant of the 3rd featured card
– Random Series 4/5 card. (If you have all of them, this will instead reward you a Premium Mystery Variant.)
You’ll have a 25% chance to get one of those, then a 33% chance to get one of the remaining options, then a 50% chance to get one of the remaining options, and finally a 100% chance to get the last item.
When getting the “Random S4/S5 card” reward, if you have all the cards, you will instead get a Premium Mystery Variant* (which could be a Rare or Super Rare Variant, but cannot be a Pixel Variant). *(this is a new concept launching alongside Spotlight Cache).

21. If you open two caches one week and miss the new card twice, will you only need to open two more the next week to get a new card or does the pitty reset between weeks?

Spotlight Cache resets every week. Every Spotlight cache starts with 4 items in it each week. You’ll have a 25% chance to get one of those, then a 33% chance to get one of the remaining options, then a 50% chance to get one of the remaining options, and finally a 100% chance to get the last item.

22. Are big bads included in the pool 5 series cards to be featured or are they in a separate category?

All S5 cards are treated the same in the context of Spotlight Caches.

23. When do season pass cards get added into the spotlight system? Since the first week of a season is three Series 4 or 5 cards do season pass card even get a spotlight in this system?

Once season pass cards become S5 cards, they will be treated like other S5 cards in the context of Spotlight Cache.

24. Will there be any specific UI for showing players what is left in their “bag” for the week, and when the week ends?

Yes, this will be in your tracked in your Spotlight Cache UI!

25. Will the Spotlight boxes have a “Hold to purchase” button?

Not currently planned. Spotlight Caches will appear on your Collection Track, but look visually distinct from Collector’s Caches and Collector’s Reserves. There will be a UI on top that tracks your current available rewards in that week’s Spotlight Cache.

26. For the random S4/S5 card in the cache is that guranteed to be a card if you are not collection complete or can it roll a S4/5 you already have and be replaced with a vairant instead?

Random Series 4 or 5 reward in the Spotlight Cache can be a card you already own. If that’s the case, it will convert to a Premium Mystery Variant.

27. What exactly are the chances of getting 150 and 200 credits in a Credits box? (both in caches and reserves)

Collector’s Cache credit chance: 20% for 200, 80% for 150.
Collector’s Reserve credit chance: 50% for 200, 50% for 150.

28. What exactly do cosmetic reserves contain?

Their content will remain unchanged, at least for now, from the previous system (30% chance for a title, 30% chance for an avatar, and 40% chance for a variant).