This Is the Only Mobile Game I Play on a Daily Basis, and You Should Too

The mobile gaming space has been full of experimentation and addictive game models, but there’s only one title that I make sure to play every day. In the current gaming landscape, mobile games have proven to be an effective home for casual gamers. There’s a certain low threshold for commitment with many of them, with little lost outside of time. Often free-to-play but with perks and unlockables hidden behind paywalls or in-game currency, mobile games can represent the best and the worst of the industry.

I’ve always tried as many as I can, out of rampant curiosity for how developers can use the often simplified control schemes and straightforward presentation of mobile games to draw in players. I’ve played plenty of Temple Run and Flappy Bird clones, riffs on Candy Crush, and idle or team-based RPGs that utilize famous IP. For the most part, I’ll get sucked into the mechanics for a while but eventually lose interest. However, there’s one game that I’ve committed to since it launched three years ago, and it remains the only mobile game I play every day.

Marvel Snap Is Great — And Not Just Because Of The Superheroes

On paper, Marvel Snap was designed just for players like me. With a deep love for Marvel Comics and a love for tabletop strategy mechanics, Marvel Snap‘s simplified approach to the TCG format makes for a solid gameplay loop. Players pick from a constantly expanding library of cards to build a 12-card deck. Each card comes with an energy cost, an overall power ranking, and typically an additional effect (with even the lack of one serving as its own perk or problem in certain situations).

Players have six turns and a growing energy supply to play their cards across three “lanes,” each represented with four open card spots and a flexible location that adds more rules to the round. At the end of the game, the player who controls the most lanes (or failing that, has the most points) wins. With rounds that typically last between 2 and 5 minutes, Marvel Snap is fast-paced and easy to pick up. However, the game’s surprising depth allows for all sorts of creative card combinations. The various card mechanics can be synced to create new effects, with new strategies coming out every day from creative players. Therein lies one of the true appeals of the game, which is that every round feels like a chance to discover something new.

For every standard deck loadout, there are ten that experiment with the standard formulas to create shocking new effects. It invites player customization in a way a lot of other mobile games don’t, beyond cosmetics (which Marvel Snap has a lot of options for). It’s a simple enough game loop to learn, but impossible to fully master thanks to the always-expanding base of cards.

Season Modes Actually Impact Gameplay In Creative Ways

Another way that Marvel Snap has continued to carry my attention (as well as the fandom of hundreds of thousands of other players) is by incorporating other game modes. Conquest mode has been a long-standing aspect of the game, with players tasked with overcoming other players for a chance to reach Infinite status.

However, the real fun comes when other game modes are introduced, with Nuverse and Skystone Games showcasing them in cycles. Deadpool’s Diner forces players to gamble with a limited-time in-game currency, betting larger pools on the odds of winning a match. High Voltage forces players to get out their full plan in 3 turns, but with a random amount of energy at their disposal. Sanctum Showdown points per lane every turn, favoring strategies that get moving over slow-burn approaches. Grand Arena introduces enhanced versions of certain cards, with unique rules like extra energy, forcing players to adapt accordingly.

Each of these modes remixes the standard rules of the game without completely upending them, providing exciting new opportunities to players who’ve otherwise adapted fully to the standard style of play. Similar to the limitless possibilities with deck-building, these modes introduce new challenges and tasks that can make runs of games feel fresh. The only downside is that these alternate modes aren’t available year-round, but that also feeds into the inventive approach to design that keeps players coming back. It speaks to the ingrained sense of experimentation that’s baked into the title.

Why I Love Marvel Snap

Marvel Snap is a delight, a fast-paced game that has just the right mix of luck and strategy to be engrossing without feeling predetermined. There are microtransactions and season passes, but none of them are necessarily required to build out the player’s personal library. Strong decks can be constructed from some of the most common cards, and in-game currency like credits can be used to unlock new and rare cards alike.

I haven’t spent money on the game in over 6 months, and it never feels like I’m necessarily missing out. I’ve adapted to other players and their newfound strategies, adjusting my decks to counter them or to incorporate their ideas into styles of play I already like. Instead, I’ve been forced to be patient — but not agonizingly slow. Most of my best decks (including a recent favorite that leans into the Fantastic Four: First Steps variants of the titular superhero team) were all unlocked in about a month of regular free play. Finding a variant cover art for a personal favorite card can set up the game’s customization in cosmetics, ensuring that my decks have their own particular visual flavor.

It’s also just fun to play Marvel Snap and see what other strategies players have come up with, and how they stack up to my own approaches to the game. It’s the rare mobile game where repetition doesn’t immediately set in. While there may be a hundred destroy decks out there, the chaos of random lane effects and the unreliability of deck draws ensure that every game can play out differently. It helps that I’m a superhero nerd, and that I love all the variant artwork and inventive approaches to translating specific powers and personalities to the cards. But at the end of the day, Marvel Snap is an effective way of bringing the TCG format to a digital space in a way that never really gets boring. That’s why I still play every day, and why I’ll likely continue to do so as long as new cards are coming out, fresh modes to play, and other players to experiment with new strategies against.