The Brutal Odds Of Marvel Snap

If you’re new to card games, there are some things you should know.

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Climbing ranks to Infinite is a grind.

• Your chance of drawing key cards can be low.
• It’s hard to consistently execute a given gameplan.
• Even skilled players still lose (or retreat) a lot.

There will be highs and lows. Settle in, and try not to take it personally.

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The Odds

Of your 12-card deck you usually draw 9 cards total - 3 in your opening hand, and then draws on your next 6 turns. This means you have a 75% chance to draw any one card.

2-in-3 to draw a card by turn 5.

But usually, we need to draw our important cards by turn 5 to set up our endgame line.

Some decks are themed around a single card - Deadpool, Sera, Mr. Negative. But you won’t draw these in time in a third of your games!

The deck’s named after Mister Negative, but you won’t play him in a third of your games.

That’s why it’s important to identify multiple win conditions, to pull out victories even without your signature card.

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Less than 50-50 to draw a two-card combo by turn 5.

Many decks rely on a signature combo, like Black Panther and Arnim Zola. But the odds of having this combo in hand by turn 5 is only 42% - less than half your games!

However, these odds improve significantly if you include multiple cards to fulfill the same role. Adding Gamora as an backup for Black Panther increases your odds to nearly 60%.

The odds of drawing a two-card (‘AB’) combo are not in your favor.

Understanding archetypes and shells is key to building decks with strong synergy, even if you don’t draw your best combo.

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Winrates

Expect to lose. A lot.

Competitive card games are often balanced so players win around half of the time. Even the best decks, played optimally, will still lose about a third of their games.

Even the best decks, played optimally, still lose a lot of games.

This is due to the randomness inherent in card games, both in the cards you draw and the strategies your opponents play. Losses are inevitable!

But mastering the snap and retreat mechanics means you can still steadily climb the ranks while only winning half your games.

Loss Streaks

Let’s say your winrate is 50%.

If you play ten games a day for a week, hitting a 5-game losing streak is 2-in-3:

The odds of going on a losing streak. (code)

Loss streaks can be extremely demoralizing, and will happen even if you play perfectly. That’s why your mental game needs to be in great shape, so you can keep playing smart and avoid tilt.

Playing the long game

In order to make consistent progress, you have to play clean - press every advantage in your cards and locations, game after game.

Some decks win a lot. Some force a lot of retreats. Some lose constantly, but pay off with big wins when they hit.

That’s why the most important stat for any deck is the average number of cubes won per game. This equalizes out those differences to a single number, that tells you how quickly this deck will help you climb the ranks.

Averaging 1 cube gained per game is phenomenally successful.

But achieving this climb depends on you, consistently making the optimal decisions to get the most out of your cards.

Let’s get started!