The fastest card battler in the multiverse just got faster! Welcome to High Voltage, a brand new way to play Snap! With more cards, more energy, and faster matches you’ll be making plays you’ve never seen before. Let’s take a look!
What is High Voltage?
High Voltage takes the core rules of Snap and condenses them into three action-packed turns. Each turn gives you more Max Energy, more cards, and huge combos that you previously only dreamt about.There are no cubes or points to lose in High Voltage, so you should always feel encouraged to try and win! There’s no downside to trying out new decks or fun new strategies, so you can build a deck, jump in, and play immediately. Win matches and complete missions to earn Volts, then redeem those Volts for a TOTALLY FREE card. How great is that?!?!?
How do you play?
You start the game with two cards in hand, and draw an additional 2 cards at the beginning of each turn.In place of the Cube where you would normally Snap, you'll have an Arc Reactor. Before each turn, the Arc Reactor will generate between 2-5 Max Energy to add to your total which can then be used to play out your master plan. Your opponent will always receive the same amount of Max Energy that you do, so there’s no guessing how much they have.On turn 1, the Arc Reactor will randomly give you and your opponent between 2-5 Max Energy to use on your first turn.On turn 2, you get the 2-5 Energy from the first turn PLUS an extra 2-5 Max Energy from the Reactor, which means you'll have 4-10 total Energy to use this turn.On turn 3, you get the 4-10 Energy from the 2nd turn PLUS an extra 2-5 Max Energy from the Reactor, which means you'll have 6-15 total Energy to use this turn. Shuri + Infinaut + Arnim Zola? It’s possible!At the end of turn 3, whoever controls 2 out of the 3 locations will win!“Wait, you’re saying I can play Galactus on turn two?” Ok, you got me there. Not all of your dastardly plans will be available. To keep the game fun and competitive, we have three cards that will not be allowed inside of High Voltage: Galactus, Black Widow, and Magik. We've also updated the location pool a bit, so don’t be surprised if you never see certain locations like Asgard.
How long will High Voltage be here?
This limited time mode is playable now, and will be here until October 24th at 12:00 PM PST. And don’t forget, playing High Voltage during the event is the ONLY way to unlock our newest card, Agony, for FREE! Miss out and you’ll need to find Agony in the token shop as a Series 4 card, available on October 31st.
Turning it up to 11. Inside look at designing High Voltage!
We’ve been working on ideas for alternate game modes for a long time now, but only a couple have seen the light of day. We always want to make sure that anything we are going to release is going to add to the fun of Snap while staying true to the core of the game, so we started by mostly changing the systems surrounding the gameplay. Now we're entering a new phase where we'll be bending the core rules further. You all play SNAP for a multitude of reasons, and we want to shine the spotlight on different parts of the game to serve different players.In that spirit, where Battle Mode explored longer matches with lots of information about your opponent’s plays, and Deadpool’s Diner explored making snapping and retreating even more central to the gameplay, High Voltage explores the other ends of each spectrum. You’ll be playing fast-paced games with lots of hidden information, and the focus will be on surprising combinations of cards. And where the first two modes made you reevaluate what it meant to win and lose with the cards playing out the same way, we wanted this game mode to be about different card interactions from normal.
Danger! Danger!
In High Voltage you can make plays you’ve never seen in Marvel SNAP before: Double Giganto’s Power with Shuri and then Taskmaster him! Nerf practically every enemy card by dropping both Scorpion and Cassandra Nova on turn 1! Make a giant Blob, hit it with Arnim Zola, and use Grandmaster to copy it again all on the last turn! Mind you, we didn’t want every play to be completely absurd. That’s awesome the first time, but if your opponents kept dropping the same wild combo it’d get old fast. That’s why the amount of Maximum Energy that both players gain varies unpredictably.When we first started experimenting with this game mode, we tried a 4 turn game, drawing two cards and getting +2 Max Energy per turn. It was immediately obvious there was something fun here, but it wasn’t as high-octane as we’d hoped it would be. We soon condensed down to 3 turns, trying lots of different schemes for gaining predictable amounts of Energy each turn. But no matter the numbers, strong decks ended up with really weird Cost distributions trying to perfect curves as often as they could. The exhilarating feeling we were chasing needed unpredictability.With that switch flipped, combo-y cards like Shuri and Odin needed to pair with different cards game-to-game and the big plays were much more fun to battle against. We can’t wait to see all the awesome plays you find!
No Missed Stakes
So why no Cube and no snapping? For one thing, this is players’ first opportunity to build decks under a pretty different set of rules. That’s going to involve a lot of trial and error and we didn’t want to penalize that; it’s okay to lose while you figure out how to make your decks shine in this mode. It would be a shame to have your opponent Snap and feel the need to retreat instead of playing all the way through to try and maximize your combos. While some love nothing more than weighing the odds and making smart decisions about when to call it quits, others are more excited about making swingy plays and seeing what happens. No one thing can be everyone’s ideal at once, so instead we want to shift the spotlight from time to time to emphasize some players’ favorite parts and deemphasize others.
Frequently Asked Questions
- When is High Voltage coming to Marvel SNAP?
- High Voltage is live now! Keep playing until 12:00 PM PST on October 24th.
- How does High Voltage work?
- Both players will start with 2 cards in hand, and each turn they’ll draw 2 more and gain the same amount of randomized Max Energy (2-5) instead of the usual 1. There’s no Cube or snapping, just try to win and to complete your Missions. After turn 3, the game ends and whoever controls 2/3 locations is the winner.
- How do I play?
- You’ll find High Voltage in the game modes along with Conquest and Friendly Battles. Winning High Voltage games and completing the mode-specific Missions will earn you Volts to unlock all sorts of cool rewards, including a brand new card: Agony.
- What if I lose?
- There’s no penalty for losing High Voltage games, and nothing to lose by staying in the game through the final turn. Hopefully that gives you ample opportunity to experiment with deck ideas and find what works for you!
- What should I play?
- While you’re free to enter High Voltage with your regular decks, the mode’s rules enable you to spend more energy on a single turn unlocking lots of exciting combinations, or just the chance to play two or three of your favorite 6-Cost cards in the same game! Don’t push your Costs up too high though; you’ll still want plays to make when the Arc Reactor gives out smaller amounts of Energy.
- Are there any cards that are off limits?
- Galactus, Black Widow, and Magik will not be allowed inside of High Voltage.