Post Pandemic Gaming. It’s a Snap, how Marvel.

Well.. I’ll be honest. Pandemic was bad for card gaming in general. We can’t go out and the kids were stuck at home as well with nothing much to do.

During the start and height of pandemic, like many others, I turned away from board game and card games and turned to video games. Why the change? This is due to lockdown forces people to stay home, so no one can make it to the social location to have some games in physical. This also create more access for people to buy games digitally via online store was something that accelerated during covid. Nobody could leave the house, so naturally that’s the easier option.

Picking a multiplayer game was easier too. There’s Destiny and also Genshin impact which was easier for friends to hang out on chatting while gaming.

That lasted a while.

Post Pandemic though, people got back into the groove of gaming physically. I got into mtg again for a few months, then the release schedule scared me away. A product release every 6-7th week? Crazeeeh. So I dropped that, then I discovered Marvel Champions by FFG. A friend decided to go in and purchase the product 2 hand and I shared the cost for the game. It’s quite a good game to play solo or coop. I’m loving it for now and will get into discussion about that game in another post.

The other card game that I actually got into, was Marvel Snap. Designed by Ben Brode being one of the lead designers.

It’s super fast paced, a complete game is done 6 rounds which is in 3-4 minutes, tops. It’s marvel themed, of course. So you have super heroes with abilities, and

The game play is simple, you a finite number of ‘mana’ / resource per turn, from 1 on turn 1 to 6 by turn 6. A deck is only 12 cards with no duplicates. There are 3 locations on the field, each location having their own effects, revealing from left to right from turn 1 to 3.

Your objective is to capture two locations with total power greater than opponents at that location. On the cards, left side is the cost in resource to play and the right, power/points to capture the location. And each heroes tends to have abilities, and it fits generally what you know of that movie/comic character. That makes the game awesome as it fits with what you know.

I can’t remember the exact deck I built when I started the game, but it was similar to this build.

The Control deck in Marvel Snap contains these cards:

• Hawkeye – Quickly becomes the most valuable 1-3 Card in Marvel Snap once you play a card in the same location after it. 
• Misty Knight – Move this card once to gain additional mobility.
• Quicksilver – For that guarantee first turn drop.
• Medusa – A solid 2cost for 5 power placed in center
• Star Lord – A good guesser for 2c = 2/5powr
• Sentinel – A good 2 cost that replaces itself. Always get warm bodies
• Punisher – With his ongoing, you can drop him earlier to a location and later will get boost stats once opponents drop more cards in his location.
• Cyclops – Replaceable with Colossus once you get it
• Iron Man – A good way to boost your location total power by double
• Abomination – Commits a strong force to a location
• Hulk – Brute 12 Force there to swing power to your side if you play it right.

It’s a decent deck with the beginning pool. There a few more decently good builds for beginning games.

That’s it for now, will drop by with more stuff later.