Digital card games can be heaps of fun if you’re willing to sit down and learn the many rules these games have.

Some of these games are digital clones of their cardboard counterparts while others leverage the digital space they live in to great effect. The one thing that unites these games, however, is complexity.

A new entry into the space as it leaves early access is Marvel Snap. The creation of Second Dinner which features the talents of Ben Brode.

As you may recall, Brode was instrumental in making Hearthstone the powerhouse in the digital card space that it is today.

So with Brode’s involvement we’ve been curious about Marvel Snap. Would it be good? Would it demand all of my money? Would we be able to play as Misty Knight?

On Wednesday evening we spent far too much time playing this game and we’re here to tell you that this game is a lot of fun.

Location, location, location

Players are given a deck of cards outright when starting the game. Decks contain 12 cards and cards can have effects such as Ongoing or On Reveal that provide buffs to them or other cards. Cards cost energy with the player’s energy increasing by one each round.

Crucially, Marvel Snap is just six rounds long and games will rarely last longer than five minutes.

At the start of the game three locations can be seen where cards can be placed. These locations have special effects and the names and effects of these locations are a mystery. Each location and its effect is revealed between turns one and three.

The goal is to have more power than your opponent at a location in order to win it. The player who controls two locations after six rounds, wins.

Locations can have no effect or they can provide a benefit or downside to your cards. For example, some locations can lower your overall power at that location meaning you would have to invest more resources to bump up your power.

What about real money?

Marvel Snap is free to play on Android, iOS and PC through Steam. There are, as you might expect in a free game, microtransactions.

What you can buy, however, are variants for the cards you own which changes their appearance.

Then there are the in-game currencies that you earn simply by playing the game. With these currencies you can upgrade your cards to take them from Common quality up to Infinity quality. These currencies can be purchased using real money to speed this process up but right now upgrades don’t give you any sort of competitive advantage.

So far the microtransactions aren’t aggressive or in your face, nor are they vital to being competitive.

Dust off your algebra skills

As we mentioned, the goal of Marvel Snap is to have more power than your opponent does at a location. Together with the location’s effects this can mean games that look as if they’re lost, can we won in a single turn as you can see in the image below.

That’s important because Marvel Snap isn’t a throw back to the traditional card game, it’s a mechanic as well.

In the image above you can see a glowing Cosmic Cube in the top centre. At any point in the game a player can wager these Cosmic Cubes by Snapping. What are Cosmic Cubes? That’s the game’s ranking system.

By default you will win two Cosmic Cubes should you win a game and lose one should you win a game. However, should a player Snap the Cosmic Cube the amount they could potentially win goes up as the game progresses. When both players Snap, the potential winnings go up to eight Cosmic Cubes.

Given that it takes 10 Cosmic Cubes to go up a rank, this is a good power levelling strategy, if you are a good player. Players can retreat and lose one Cosmic Cube if they aren’t confident.

It’s a wonderfully fun balancing act of risk versus reward all while doing mental maths to try win.

The problems

Marvel Snap has some problems and before we picked the game up there was controversy surrounding microtransactions. Videos such as the one from Zeddy below talk about cards being locked behind the Premium Season Pass, but we don’t see this as of time of writing.

In fact, there isn’t even an option buy a Season Pass that we can see which is odd, but perhaps this is because we’re just starting out. We will update this story should this change of course.

While Zeddy dislikes the fact that the cards you earn are random, we like this as it forces you to do the best with what you have rather than being able to craft or buy the latest meta cards.

We do wish that the PC interface wasn’t emulating the mobile interface so much but Second Dinner is a small developer so we won’t harp on this too much.

So far nothing about Marvel Snap feels predatory but this can of course change given it’s a live game.

We can easily recommend Marvel Snap if you love Marvel content and even if you don’t. The game doesn’t lean too heavily into the MCU and instead draws from Marvel’s vast comic book catalogue.

As mentioned, Marvel Snap is free for Android, iOS and Steam.