Why Does Getting New Cards In Marvel Snap Have To Feel So Bad?

I swear, I took one short break from Marvel Sn🎃ap a few months after it launched, a⛄nd I’ve never managed to catch back up. The mobile game’s unique card acquisition system forgoes the classic TCG packs in favor of a progressive Collection Level system that ensures all but the whale-iest of whales will forever be collection incomplete.

This is by design - the system is made to force people to build the best decks they can rather than rely on netdecking to construct the most overpower🦩ed deck possible - but the longer Snap has gone on, the more I’ve felt left behind♔.

The Collection Level System Is Overdue For An Overhaul

rewards for collection level including spotlight key, and the weekly cards in the spotlight cache

The Collection Level system is entirely too complex and not worth dissecting in detail here, but the essence of it is that you earn points as you play which eventually unlock random cards. All the cards in the are sorted into a few different buckets, or Series. When you begin the game you unlock all of the Series 1 and Series 2 cards in a♔ predetermined order, which is the basic collection everyone can build decks from.

After that, you unlock all of the Series 3 cards in a random order. New Series 4 and Series 5 cards are added to the game every week, and while there’s a few different methods for acquiring them, it is impossibl🍌e to keep up with these new cards unless you’re heavily financially invested in the game.

Periodically, older cards will go through a process called the Series Drop, which reduces their series by one level, making them easier to obtain. This is a pretty rare occurrence, at least compared to how often players expected them to happen when Series Drops were first announced. The was announced this week, which should be a reason to celebrate. It means rare cards are going to become easier to get now. Unfortunat🦩ely, the cards chosen for the Series Drop are overwhelmingly bad.

The Series Drop Is Insufficient

The♓re are nine cards moving from Series 5 to Series 4 and three cards moving from Series 4 to Series 3. Among those 12 cards, there are maybe four that are considered meta staples. X23, Iron Lad, Kitty Pryde, and Jean Grey are great cards to have if they're not in your collection yet. The other eight? Binder trash. These series drops are supposed to help people catch ဣup, but if the cards in the drop aren’t good, then what’s the point?

Second Dinner knows that card acquisition is a problem. The studio has been talking vaguely for a while about its plans for a solution, and it tried to get ahead of the drama surrounding this series drop by explaining that it’s not to fix the problem. On the game’s Discord server, senior community manager Griffin Bennett wrote, “While these Series Drops will help many players along th𝓡eir journey, it’s not intended to fix the core issues we are all feeling around Card acquisition. The team remains focused on a larger, long-term solution. We’re planning for an even bigger Series Drop in the first quarter of 2025 which is faster than our previous Series Drop schedule.”

Changes Are Coming, But Not Soon Enough

I want to give Second Dinner grace here, because acknowledging this problem and promising a solution is a great, albeit long-awaited step. At the same time, I can’t help but feel the upcoming Series Drop is rather tone deaf in execution. It’s great that there’s plans, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next Series Drop has to offer, but this one seems to be doing more harm than good.

What’s the point of making cards like Beta Ray Bill and Sasquatch easier to acquire? There were over 70 Series 5ౠ cards to choose from, so why these ones? I don’t think anyone expects all the biggest meta staples in the same drop, but why not a few? If it’s going to be a while before the new system is implemented, why not trꦉy to take care of players as much as you can right now?

This has been a problem long enough that promises of future fixes aren’t satisfying anyone, and a Series Drop this light feels like an insult. We know that Series Drops aren’t the intended solution, but we need a Band-Aid right now. For whatever reason, Second Dinner sees the wound, and instead of offering a Band-Aid to stop the bl꧟eeding, just keeps promising that the stitches are on the way.