The new MARVEL Snap is finally released and players can now access and see what all the hype is about. And in this case, it seems the excitement was warranted, considering that the folks at Nuverse have managed to come up with an awesome new formula for a genre that, quite frankly, has been feeling somewhat stale as of late. It seems that the heavy hitters like Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh are the uncontested champions in the genre, and while it’s still too early to say if MARVEL Snap is here to stay, its concept is definitely unique enough to warrant taking a look, particularly if you’re a fan of the genre.

With that being said, MARVEL Snap is unique not only in its gameplay mechanics, but also in the way players can unlock and earn new cards for their decks. We’ve already covered this aspect briefly in our MARVEL Snap beginner’s guide. However, with the game’s full release, we can go ahead and take a closer look at all the progression aspects, and give our own tips and tricks on how to progress as a new player.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

Understanding the Collection Level

The Collection Level is the main method of unlocking new cards in MARVEL Snap. It consists of a progression tree similar to a battle pass in other games, where every few tiers rewards the player with a variety of prizes, including full cards, boosters, and credits. And in order to level up your collection, you simply need to upgrade the cards in your deck, via using the aforementioned boosters and credits.In other words, every time you upgrade a card in your deck, you’ll get levels for your collection, which are essentially the main metric to determine the progression of your account. 

The first few tiers of the Collection Level always grant specific cards, up to level 14. From level 18 onwards, you’ll start unlocking “Mystery Cards”, which are drawn randomly from three different pools. Once you unlock all the cards in the first pool, you’ll start drawing cards from the second, and so on. For this reason, considering the number of unlockable cards in this game, it’ll probably be a while before you’re able to start drawing cards from the third and final pool.

This is, by far, the best way to unlock new cards for your collection, especially since there will be no card crafting at this time. However, the devs have already revealed that there will be a way to unlock targeted cards in the future, through a system revolving around “Collector Tokens”, though they didn’t specify when this will be implemented.

Credits and Boosters

As we mentioned above, the only way to build up your Collection Level, therefore progressing your account, is by upgrading cards. However, the only way to do so revolves around the two main currencies in this MARVEL Snap; boosters and credits.

When it comes to credits, this is just a standard basic currency used for a variety of things, including upgrading cards. These are common and obtained from mostly everywhere, though it’s also one of the bottlenecks for upgrading your cards and increasing your Collection Level, since these upgrades can get prohibitively expensive. This is also something we discussed in our article about whether or not MARVEL Snap was fair to F2P users, considering that credits are directly purchasable from the store using real money. Feel free to check out that article if you want to learn more.

Boosters, on the other hand, are a bit more elusive, specifically because they’re not a universal type of currency. In fact, each booster is specific to their own card. In other words, Hawkeye boosters can’t be used for upgrading Hulk, for example. Regardless, the only way to obtain and farm boosters for a specific character is by adding their cards into your deck, and using them in combat. However, another way of obtaining this currency is randomly via Collection Level and Season Pass rewards, though this is hardly a reliable method of farming specific boosters.

Every time you upgrade one of your cards by using boosters and credits, not only will they earn new appearances, but they will also add to your Collection Level, which in turn will help you unlock more cards and awesome rewards. Keep in mind, however, that there are only seven levels of quality in MARVEL Snap, which in ascending order include Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Ultra, and Infinity cards. Once a card reaches Infinity quality, it’ll automatically split into two, with the main card retaining its max quality, and the “offspring” card starting off at Common rarity, after which you can start upgrading it all over again.

Play MARVEL SNAP on PC

Play MARVEL SNAP on PC

Suffice to say, one of the most important parts about your progression in MARVEL Snap is upgrading these cards. In this sense, you’d do well to perform these crucial upgrades whenever you get the chance. However, you also need to keep in mind that, as a F2P user, your credits will be limited, so choose wisely which cards you want to upgrade first.

The Season Pass

Another progression system in this game is the Season Pass, which judging from the name alone, should give you an idea of what it’s about. 

Simply put, this system is similar to the Collection Level, in that you have to level it up in order to receive awesome rewards in each tier. Some of these rewards include cards, credits, Variants, Gold, and Boosters, to name a few. 

This feature comes in three levels:

• Free Season Pass: Offers new avatars, cards, credits, boosters, Gold, and one Variant card.

• Premium Season Pass (USD 9.99): On top of the rewards in the Free Season Pass, this tier also has a unique card and cosmetics. The card in question is exclusive to the Premium Season Pass though it’ll be added to the third Mystery Card pool eight weeks after becoming available through the Season Pass feature.

• Premium+ (USD 14.99): Offers the same rewards as the Premium Season Pass, but bumps the player up 10 levels from the moment when they first purchase this tier.

The Shop

One last aspect when it comes to your account progression and upgrades in MARVEL Snap is the shop feature. 

Just as its name implies, the shop is where you can spend currency in order to purchase certain benefits in the game. This store is divided into several parts, each with their own offering, some of which could even be relevant to the F2P users:

• Daily Offer: This is where players can find a daily assortment of Variant cards, which are similar to skins in other games, in that you can use them instead of their base cards in combat, to give your deck a unique look and flair. These Variants rotate randomly every 24 hours, and can only be purchased with Gold, the game’s premium currency. The standard Rare Variants are worth 700 Gold, while the Super Rare Variants are worth 1,200 Gold. Additionally, while you could get a few Rare Variants from the Collection Level feature, the only way to obtain Super Rare Variants is by purchasing them from the store.

• Fast Upgrade: This is another part of the shop that resets every 24 hours, and that will show you three cards currently in your collection. The idea of this shop is to give you a quick way to upgrade the cosmetic quality of these cards, by letting you purchase the corresponding boosters through spending credits. This means that you’ll only ever see cards that you currently own, in this section. 

The credit cost for upgrading the cards through this feature is set at a base of 50 credits, with each booster for the card in your possession reducing the cost by 5 credits. This is a great way to spend your credits if you feel you have too much of this currency, though we still recommend saving them for actually upgrading the cards that you actually want in your deck.

• Credit Shop: Simply put, this is where you go to spend Gold for purchasing credits. This is one of the largest points of contention for whether the game is fair or not towards F2P users. And while people can technically pay to receive credits, and have an easier time upgrading their cards and increasing their Collection Levels, they would still need to farm the corresponding Boosters. And while they might have it easier when it comes to upgrading cards, they would still have no control over the cards they receive from increasing their Collection Level, adding an extra layer of complications to the mix.

Overall, we personally think MARVEL Snap is pretty fair for F2P users, considering the checks in place so that spenders can’t get too much of an advantage. 

• Gold: This is pretty self-explanatory, as this section is where you’ll be able to spend real money to buy Gold, the game’s premium currency.

And that’s all you need to know about the progression systems in the new MARVEL Snap. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments below!