Collector Tokens, new cards and nerfs hit Marvel Snap

I was dismissive of my first few games of Marvel Snap, intrigued by the next few, then hooked within ten. Second Dinner’s lightning-fast CCG manages to pack a surprising amount of nuance and strategy within six turns, while cleverly leaning on that brevity to play around with ideas that wouldn’t work elsewhere. It’s neat! And free! You should try it.

All the more so, now that the latest update has added Collector Tokens that let you buy specific cards rather than leaving you solely at the mercy of booster packs. There are also 16 new cards, nerfs to some old ones, and a smattering of other improvements.

Rather than letting you buy anything you like, those Tokens can only be spent on whichever card is currently up for grabs in the Token shop. That card changes every eight hours, but you can pin it for as long as you like and stop new ones appearing while you save up for it. You only start gaining tokens once your collection level has hit 500, which is when you start unlocking cards from pool three and opening Collector’s Caches.

It costs 3000 Tokens to unlock each card, and so far I’ve only found batches of 100 in my Caches. The developers have handed out 3000 to everyone who reached collection level 500 before the update landed, though, so I’ve already bought myself the Helicarrier – a new card that adds three new cards to my hand if it gets discarded. It’s the push I need to start tinkering with a deck that revolves around self-discards, and a good example of how Snap’s generous business model and game structure come together to incentivise experimenting with different archetypes. With only 12 cards in each deck, every addition and substitution feels more impactful than in games with fatter decks.

On the nerf front, Angela has taken a heavy hit, with her starting power now reduced from one to zero. She still gets two power every time you play another card to her location, mind, so I expect I’ll keep running into her. Destroyer, Mysterio and Sera have also had their power lowered by one, and Onslaught’s doubling of Ongoing powers is now additive rather than exponential. I’m sad that means I won’t get to see screenshots with silly three digit numbers anymore.

The new cards include Thanos, Galactus, and Agent Coulson. I’m most intrigued by Titania, who swaps sides everytime someone plays a card to her location..

There are also a bunch of bug fixes, new visual effects, and “improved bad luck protection” so players on the same collection level should all have roughly the same number of cards. You’ll find the full patch notes here.

Marvel Snap is free onSteam – although I’ve heard the PC version is a merely functional port of the mobile one. I play on my iPad. shh