Marvel Snap's new Conquest mode gives hardcore players a more intense challenge

This week Marvel Snap received arguably its biggest update since launching last year. In this major patch, developer Second Dinner introduced the game's first new competitive mode, known as Conquest. While I've spent well over a hundred hours playing games of Marvel Snap in its traditional mode and building my collection, I was excited to see what a new mode would look like.

After spending several hours with Conquest mode tonight, I can confirm that it's an awful lot of fun, especially for players who are already deeply invested in the game, even if it's nothing too crazy or new.

Advertised by Second Dinner as "where the real pros play," Conquest mode is about challenging players to a longer stretch of battles. In some ways, it makes for a more traditional card game challenge than the regular game, which set itself apart from other digital card games by featuring extremely short matches of five minutes or less.

In Conquest mode, though, once you've matched with an opponent, you'll be locked into battle with them for multiple matches in a row. Instead of wagering cosmic cubes, players have to bet a portion of their life bar. Both players begin Conquest with a total of ten ticks of health, and depending on how much both players risk, each match could cost anywhere from a single tick to eight.

What this health bar addition means in practice is that, even in the best-case scenario where both players risk it all and you wipe out eight ticks of health from your opponent in one swoop, you'll still need to play at least two games against them to fully defeat them. (That's barring scenarios where one of the sides concedes the whole Conquest early, of course.)

While each individual match still plays out swiftly, Conquest mode lends Marvel Snap a little more of that feeling of playing best-of-three battles in Magic: The Gathering. Over the course of a full Conquest match-up, I was able to learn my opponent's deck, which allowed me to strategize even more than usual.

Part of the reason I love Marvel Snap so much is that matches often end up feeling like psychological showdowns. Can I guess what my opponent is going to do next? Can I outthink them by playing the perfect counter at the last possible moment? Or will they expect me to do that and counter my counter?

Conquest mode heightens that already existing tension. Since I learned what answers my opponent had in their deck, I could try to plan around them. But they also learned what answers I had, so potentially game-winning plays—like using Enchantress to strip away the Ongoing abilities from cards my opponent played—grew even harder to pull off correctly.

In addition to demanding more time of players, Conquest mode also asserts its seriousness by demanding resources. The mode has four different tiers of difficulty, with increasing rewards but also increasing requirements to win. The Proving Grounds tier is the only one that's free and seems like it's primarily intended for testing decks before taking it into the other modes. Silver and Gold tiers require either a ticket you can earn from various tasks or paying a small amount of gold (the game's premium currency) to enter. Silver requires beating two opponents to win the full rewards, while Gold had me face down three enemies.

The final and hardest difficulty, Infinity Conquest, is actually not even available yet; it will unlock in a little over a week. This one challenges players to defeat five opponents in a run, and entering without a ticket will set players back 500 gold (around $7).

I can see some players getting annoyed by the buy-in requirement, but personally, I think it's important for Conquest mode to succeed as a more hardcore experience. By requiring players to commit to spending either their limited tickets or real money, it'll ensure that they're really looking to be competitive and not just messing around. And if they do just want to mess around, they can do so in the Proving Grounds mode!

That said, I hope Second Dinner will provide easy ways for players to earn tickets regularly as well, whether it's through quests, the seasonal battle pass, or other avenues. I can see myself playing an awful lot of Conquest in the future. I've already conquered Silver and Gold, and I cannot wait to test my mettle in Infinity Conquest.

💬 Have you checked out Marvel Snap's Conquest mode yet? I want to hear your thoughts in the comments!