Card gameMarvel Snapis already known for its fast-paced fun, with players battling for control of various locations using iconic heroes and villains from Marvel Comics. Now, in the limited time High Voltage mode,Marvel Snapplayers get to experience a three-turn game - rather than the usual six - with increased amounts of energy and the ability to draw two cards. With High Voltage, theMarvel Snapdevelopment team endeavored to create an experience that felt truly different from a standard game ofSnapby changing the core formula in many ways.
Game Rant had the opportunity to speak with design director Ben Hayes about the limited-time mode, which will run from October 16 to October 24. Hayes, who has been playtesting the mode, eagerly discussed his personal deck building strategies and providedhelpful tips forSnapplayersto utilize. He also explained which cards are banned in High Voltage mode, how theMarvel Snapteam decided to decrease the turn number from three to six, and much more.This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Three Cards And Many Locations Cannot Be Used In This Mode
Q: Are there any cards or locations that have been removed for High Voltage mode?
HAYES:The location pool for this mode is significantly smaller than the location pool for other game modes. There are a lot of locations that simply wouldn’t do anything - for example, any location that says “On Turn 4 or later…” or “On Turn 5 or later…” Similarly, we don’t haveLimbospawning, because we don’t want to go from a three-turn game to a seven-turn game.
And there are also some banned cards in the mode. There are three cards you won’t be able to play in your deck, which areMagik, Galactus, and Black Widow. Magik [spawns Limbo]and Galactus [destroys locations]may be for more obvious reasons. Black Widow is because, with fewer turns and [playing] two cards per turn, we found that skipping a turn of drawing cards was really punishing and really wrecked your whole plan. So we did decide to add it as a third card to the ban list for this event.
Q: What about Agatha Harkness - does her playing cards for you on even turns work differently in High Voltage mode?
HAYES:That’s a great question - I don’t think I ever putAgathain a High Voltage deck. But I’m sure people will. I think she’d work fine, given that there are still odd and even turns in the game. I think she’ll attempt to spend as much of your increased energy as she can. She might not always make great plays, but she’ll make plays. That sounds great. I hadn’t even thought of that.
Why High Voltage Is A Three-Turn Game
Q: How did you decide on three turns specifically in High Voltage mode? Was it always three, or did you experiment with different numbers of turns?
HAYES:We started with four, actually, and the reason we went down to three, and settled on three, was that four still felt more likenormalMarvel Snapthan we were going for. We really wanted this to feel like a very different experience, something that was really different from any other variation or way you’d playedSnapbefore.
We tried a lot of different things for the energy progression. We tried a lot offixed numbers of energyas you went for the game. So, like “Three energy on Turn 1, six on Turn 2, nine on Turn 3,” or “3-5-8.” All kinds of different combinations. And the variable energy, getting 2-5 per turn, is something that the lead designer of this mode, Jules Robins, came up with after we were initially working on it. He took it over to really design it, and develop it, and flesh it out, and get it made. He came up with the energy range, and that did a lot to make deck building more interesting.
Because, if you may imagine, every time we had a fixed number, it really restricted how you wanted to build your deck. Like, 3-6-9, you just playthrees and sixes. You just play a three and then a six, or two threes and six and a three. They kind of ran into that problem with every set of numbers, and the experimentation just became way less interesting. But then, when we made it a range, your shackles came off a little bit, and you were like “Well, I’m just going to have a lot of energy. I’m just going to put a lot of cool, expensive stuff in the deck, and just kind of see what happens.” It wasn’t as much about the precise puzzle of “how do I spend all my fixed amount of energy every turn?” I think that was the biggest thing that we iterated on - the energy number. And I’m really excited that we ended up where we did.
How To Build A High Voltage Deck
Q: What advice would you give toMarvel Snapplayers regarding building High Voltage decks?
HAYES:What I’ve done with building High Voltage decks is, I looked at a lot of the very powerful combos inMarvel Snap.In some cases, I tried to figure out where I might be able to put two or even three of these in a deck. So,Wong, Mystique, Absorbing Man are all good examples of cards that really supercharge your output in the game, but have flexibility with a wide variety of cards. Similarly, something like a move card along with Professor X to really lock a location down.
Think “what is acool combo or strategy that I like to do inMarvel Snap?” And then realize that, instead of needing to build that out really progressively or sequentially with a curve of energy, or needing to have support cards and finesse the deck building, you can just take the most powerful parts of that strategy and chuck it in the deck. And then you can chuck another thing in the deck, and maybe even a third thing in the deck.
But there doesn’t even really have to be [combinations], because, like I mentioned earlier, you may do one thing on Turn 1 and maybe even a different thing on Turn 2. And then, if you have 11 or 12 or 13 energy on Turn 3, you can play almost a completely different strategy, kind of out of nowhere, and it still works pretty well.
So, that’s how I build High Voltage decks. I just think: “What do I like doing? What feels really powerful?” and then I cut all the filler pieces out of it, because I don’t need them. I don’t need to do anything on my turn where i haveone energy, or two energy - I can just chuck it all onto the board.
Oh, wait, and you should definitely playHydra Bob, because Hydra Bob has no downsides in this mode. I don’t think Hydra Bob is going to be in every deck, but it’s a very good card. It’s better than it is in normalSnap.
Playing High Voltage Matches Can Earn Players Valuable Rewards
Q: Players who participate in High Voltage can earn a new card, Agony. Was this card specifically designed for High Voltage mode, or will it work well in normalMarvel Snapgames too?
HAYES:I think it’s going to fit really well in the normal game. It’s nice in High Voltage in the sense that it doesn’t take up a slot in its location, effectively, because you play it and then play something else, and it merges into that card. So, in a world where you have a lot more cards and energy, and you might get limited by your slots on a location, it’s nice in that way.
So I think it’s a totally reasonable card to play in High Voltage after you unlock it, but it’s also totally serviceable and strong in a variety of more traditionalMarvel Snapdecks. It’s really good with the Human Torch in a move deck. It’s really good withDeadpool- really good with anything that doubles or copies. So, I think it has a lot of applications.
Q: Can you talk briefly about other rewards players can earn via High Voltage?
HAYES:There’s Agony, and there’s anIron Manvariant that’s really awesome. And I think the rest of the rewards are either currency or cosmetics. So it’s a similar structure to what you would have seen in Deadpool’s Diner [mode]. There’s currency rewards, there are cosmetic rewards, there’s a new card, and there’s a variant. In this case, the variant isn’t for the new card, it’s for Iron Man. And it’s awesome.
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