Fight your friends with Marvel Snap’s ‘Battle Mode’ update

How to play Battle Mode in Marvel Snap

We all have that friend who would just destroy us in a one-on-one battle in Marvel Snap. Or maybe you are that friend! Either way, until now, players have been mostly playing against themselves. The goal has been to win matches to upgrade cards, which earns Collection Level points. Collection Level points lead to gaining more cards. After the most recent update, however, you can challenge your friends to a duel. Here’s how you can utilize Battle Mode in Marvel Snap to compete against your friends.

Update that app

The new update can be found in your app store if you’re using the mobile version of Marvel Snap. It’s not necessarily an automatic update for many players, so go to the app page in whichever app store you used to download it. There will be a button that says, “Upgrade.” It doesn’t take long at all to be ready to go again. When you open the game again, there will be a new Menu page to explore.

Game Modes

The Game Modes menu is at the bottom to the right of the Main Menu. The joystick icon will display the menu name when clicked on. At the time of writing, there is a front page to this menu. You have to click on the image taking up the screen that says “Friendly Battle” to move forward. The existence of this page makes me think that we can hope for different types of game modes in the future. Why else have this extra step?

Once you are in the Friendly Battles page, you will have two options: Create or Join. If you’re making the first move, click “Create.” A match code will be generated for you to copy and share with your friend. This can be a little awkward if you’re also trying to communicate via your phone. When I tried it, I had to copy the code and then swipe up out of Marvel Snap to share it via chat. Thankfully this doesn’t end the match, and I was able to pick right back up where I left off. Joining a match is the opposite side of this coin. If you have a code, choose “Join,” and you will see a space for you to enter that code. Easy!

A word of warning here: the deck you have selected when you join is the deck you are playing every round with. Make sure it’s the one you want!

The Rules of Battle Mode

Battle Mode works a little differently than the usual matches. Each player begins the battle with 10 health. The winner is the player that can bring their opponent’s health down to zero over a series of rounds. The amount of damage dealt each round is equal to the number of Cubes won. You can still retreat in Battle Mode to limit your damage the same way you would while playing matches. If you retreat before the final blow, you only lose one point of health instead of two. This means Friendly Battles can go on for a long time, especially if players are evenly matched.

By Round Five, however, the stakes are doubled by beginning the match with an automatic Snap. This means that only one player has to Snap in order for the stakes to be 8 Cubes. If you’re unsure what that is still, here’s an explanation of what the Snap does in Marvel Snap. So the loser of each round has their health docked by the total Cubes lost, and by Round Five, the loser can lose two, four, or eight points of health.

Playing in Battle Mode won’t do anything for your journey to gain Collection Levels and rank. It’s just a fun skirmish between friends. Up until now, matches have been based on the player’s level, so it will be interesting to see how different they will be when you’re playing against your friends. While you won’t be gaining prizes, for some players, it’s worth gaining practice in strategy. Players will have their decks locked for the duration of the battle, so with each round, you will have to be careful not to show all of your tricks right off the bat.

Personally, I have a lot to gain from my friends who have achieved higher levels than me. My only concern with this mode is that the cards each player has is based on their level. And while strategy will get you far in this game, some players are just going to have better cards. Unless your friends are around the same level as you, Friendly Battles might be a little discouraging.

So far, this update has been really fun though! Competing against friends in a way that doesn’t harm your overall game is a nice low-stakes bonding experience. Some players are already thinking up ways to play tournaments now, which seems like a logical step forward for a card game. For help with deck builds, we have a few guides to help, including the best destroy deck builds and the best decks to build around Black Panther.