How Marvel Snap made me fall in love with card strategy games

As much as I hate to say it, I really, really, don't enjoy strategy games. If I have to choose between playing games like Civilisations or Hearthstone, and a hack-and-slash experience, I'm choosing titles like Devil May Cry any day of the week. However, I downloaded Marvel Snap in 2022, expecting to delete it within a few hours of playing, and found myself hooked to this day.

There's no doubt that the biggest advantage of Second Dinner's hit smartphone and PC game is the Marvel IP. Playing with huge MCU characters like Iron Man or Spider-Man, each with unique abilities that you can build decks around, feels amazing. However, I really appreciate the game's use of smaller characters, with cards like The Infinaut, who has been one of the most powerful 6-Cost cards in the game despite having very few appearances in comics.

However, there's something in the easy-to-learn, hard-to-master approach that Second Dinner delivers with Marvel Snap that has kept me coming back every single day. At the start, I had no idea why anyone would use Carnage in their decks, as he destroys various cards at a location to gain power. "Why would you want to destroy your characters?" I thought to myself, before I found myself hooked playing the best Marvel Snap destroy decks on repeat. I felt the same with discarding cards in Marvel Snap, finding it strange that people were removing powerful characters from their hand before playing them, yet I find myself spending keys to build the best Corvus Glaive deck as soon as the Black Order member releases.

You can easily win matches with a bit of luck, thanks to the RNG of the three locations on the board, or you can build meta-defining decks that win with a bit of trickery and lots of power in two out of three lanes. But there's a beauty to winning and losing that keeps me on my toes, and makes me think about playing just one more match. Until the next match, at least.

I don't have a lot of time on my hands anymore. Working, looking after kids, and wanting to chill out in the evening means that I can rarely dive into huge, expansive entries on the best RPG games list. However, I don't want something simple like Candy Crush, which will bore me after a few levels of swiping around puzzle pieces. Marvel Snap hits that perfect balance of being able to either sink hours of playtime in one sitting, or just playing through a match or two to complete your daily missions.

Of course, where there's a mobile game, there's questionable monetisation. Unfortunately, Marvel Snap does feature some high-priced bundles that will ask you to pay triple-A prices for a variant and some consumables. But, in general, Marvel Snap is fairly generous with its design. Unlocking new Marvel Snap cards can be done as a free-to-play player, while purchasing each Season Pass will get you a newly released card and the opportunity to get a lot of Marvel Snap Gold.

The only issue I have with the game, is that despite constantly nerfing and buffing cards depending on the meta, the best Marvel Snap move decks are left to die. Please, Second Dinner, let move define the meta for just a few weeks. And let Spider-Man 2099 be a powerful card for just a little while.

While the core game is worth trying out on its own accord, the community is just as amazing. Whether people are sharing their own homebrew decks via r/MarvelSnapDecks, showing off their latest variants and discussing patches in r/MarvelSnap. Or, you've got creative YouTubers like NUFF SAID BOB delivering some hilarious and meme-worthy videos of Marvel Snap, it's easy to appreciate witnessing such a passionate community of fans play and talk about the game.

I've had my fair share of issues with the game, including some patches raising more questions than answers, but it's very clear that Marvel Snap is here to stay, at least in my personal routine. In fact, my love for the smartphone hit has made me try out various card strategy games since then, including the incredible Marvel's Midnight Suns, when before Snap, I would've completely missed out on it. Suffice to say, Marvel Snap has got me hooked, and I don't think that will change any time soon.