InMarvel Snap, winning is not the only goal when playing the game; you also have to keep an eye on the Snap mechanic and work out how many Cubes you could win or lose. The most dangerous situations are those where you think you are winning, and then a big surprise comes your way after a Snap.
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Knowing your opponent’s gameplan and what might be coming your way is one of the top skills in the game. In this list, we’re going to give you the best tips to work out what your opponent is trying to do so you can work out if you can beat it — or if it’s time to retreat.
10Playing Cards With No Abilities
If your opponent is dropping cards likeMisty Knight,Brood,Shocker, orMister Sinister, chances are it’s aPatriotDeck. What that normally means is they will use their final turns to drop a bunch of buff cards like Patriot,Mystique,Onslaught,orBlue Marvelto increase the power of whatever they have on board, or they will be playing cards that flood locations with more cards to benefit from existing buffs, like Brood,Squirrel Girl,Ultron,orDoctor Doom.
If they have a single location stacked with any combination of Patriot, Mystique, Ka-Zar, or Blue Marvel, then Ultron is normally coming, and don’t underestimate how much power that can put out.
9Playing Nothing On Later Turns
If your opponent plays nothing on Turn 5, this often meansThe Infinautis coming. Doing the same on Turn 4 can also meanShe-Hulk(and friends) will then follow. Infinaut is the easier to manage, as it will be one 20-power card coming down somewhere on Turn 6, and you should be able to read the board state to guess where that will be played, or counter it.
With She-Hulk, you can expect a ton of power to be played, and there’s not too much you can do about it.
Any time Wong is on the field, you should expect cards likeMystique,Ironheart,White Tiger,Black Panther,Gambit, and otherOn Revealcards to follow. And if any of those are on the board together already, you should expectOdinto come down on T6 and trigger them all again.
If you don’t have an answer for these combos, which are some of the most devastating in the game, it’s time to retreat.
7Destroying Cards
If your opponent is destroying either their own or your cards, they are probably looking to playDeath.Turn 1Yonducan be a sign this is coming. Other typical plays include dropping cards likeNova,Deadpool, andBucky Barnesand then destroying them withCarnage,Venom, orDeathlokto generate more power on board and powerful cards in hand.
If they succeed at their destroying, there isn’t much you can do to stop a strong board and a discounted Death being played. If you have disruption cards likeArmor,Cosmo, anything that moves their cards to stop their destruction, then you can seriously interfere with this plan. Otherwise, expect a cheap 12-power Death plus friends late-game.
6Move Decks
When cards likeIron Fist, Multiple Man, Human Torch, andVulturehit the board early, it’s a Move Deck. In the mid-game, they will want to use cards likeDr StrangeandCloakto move their other cards around and power them up, and normallyHeimdallwill come down on Turn 6 and move everything on the board to your left.
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Against Move decks, the Locations in play become very important, because you can use these to anticipate spots where your opponent does and does not want cards to end up, and where they need to play their trigger cards, so that they have room to move their others. Normally, all this moving will end up with your right-most lane the most winnable and the left-most lane their strongest. Move players are often aware that Heimdall is telegraphed though, so be prepared for other possibilities on Turn 6, especially if they have successfully manged to power up their moving cards already.
5Mister Negative
IfMister Negativeis played on Turn 4, there are a couple of possibilities. One is thatMagikwill be played on Turn 5 to set up two more turns to take advantage. The other is thatSerawill be played on Turn 5, heralding a huge Turn 6.
Either way, they will want plenty of board space, and their card positioning is quite important. Disruption cards that limit their ability to play cards, likeSandman, or change their cost, likeWave, can be very powerful to inhibit these kind of decks.
Discard decks are easy to spot, as the first plays are normallyBlade,Sword Master,Colleen Wing, orSif. Pay careful attention to the cards they discard, because these will very likely be coming back later. If they have discarded bothHelaandGhost Rider, they are in trouble, because they can no longer bring cards back. Now your only danger isApocalypseon Turn 6 — or any other big threats they had.
If they are discarding cards likeHulkorInfinaut, then these can be brought back to the board later in game as long as they have somewhere to play and trigger Hela or Ghost Rider and space on board to return the discarded cards. If their discards hitSwarm, especially multiple times, then be prepared for a ‘swarm’ of 0-cost 3-power cards late-game.
3Adding Cards To Their Hand
If your opponent is playing early game cards likeAgent 13, Sentinel, Mantis, andCable, then there are two main options. Either they are looking to playDevil Dinosaurlater, in which case this will either drop on T5 into an empty lane and could be a setup forArnim Zolato duplicate it on T6 — or Dino could also be played on its own, with some other big threat following on Turn 6.
The other possibility is thatQuinjetand/orSeraare coming later, discounting all the cards they have gained earlier in the game and letting them play a big ‘miracle’ turn. If either of these come down on Turns 4 or 5, be ready.
2Empty Lanes
It’s normal in Snap for lanes to be empty even into the final turns, as players focus on trying to win others, but these can also be hunting grounds for cards likeGalactus,Professor X, orHobgoblin. The latter two can come down on Turn 5 and almost instantly win the lane.
Galactus normally needs some help, so look out for Energy-boosting cards or locations that allow him to be played early likePsylockeorElectro. Galactus, followed byDeath, can be a brutal combo that only reveals itself very late in the game.
Leaderis one of the nastiest cards in Marvel Snap, and with so many Turn 6 threats, it is not at all easy to predict it or play it around it. There are two cards that often come before it that can give you a clue it is coming. The first isLeech, which, when dropped on turn 5, lets the Leader player know they are safe from any powerful abilities you had and can simply beat you by creating more power than whatever you drop on Turn 6.
The second isWhite Queen, which Leader players use to scout your hand for you biggest threat. If you see either of these cards, consider how the cards you play on Turn 6 might be turned against you by Leader.
