Marvel Snap’s three-lane power struggle is surprisingly complex, and the game’s interface does a good job of communicating the winner and why. But when there’s a tie, the game resolves with a tiebreaker that’s not well-explained.
Here’s how tiebreakers work in Marvel Snap:
- If players tie one or more locations, their power level across all locations is totaled. The player with the highest total power level wins.
- Since each player has the same power level at tied locations, they don’t make a difference in determining a winner. To predict the outcome of a tiebreaker, you just have to add up the power levels at the non-tied locations.
In the image above the middle location is tied. Adding up each player’s power levels at the other locations, the top player has 19 (14 and 5) and the bottom player has 26 (13 and 13), so the bottom player wins.
In rare instances, players tie one location and split the others, but have the same total power level. If that happens, the game ends in a tie and no one’s rank improves.
In theory, a game can also end with two locations tied or all three locations tied. In the first instance, the player who won the third location would win, since they’d have the higher total power. In the second instance, there’d be no winner since the players again have identical power levels.
Knowing that tiebreakers involve total power level, you can avoid one error: not playing cards you could play because they won’t win you a location. Instead, you should dump all the power you can onto the board, because your power level in locations you ultimately lose may turn out to matter in a tiebreak.
It’s also worth noting that the Steam version of Marvel Snap currently has a vertical UI, but the full PC release will include a fullscreen landscape UI. This is a much-needed change, as the current UI feels cramped and phone-sized.
Overall, Marvel Snap’s tiebreaker system is a bit opaque, but it’s important to understand how it works if you want to improve your chances of winning. By dumping all your power onto the board, you can avoid the mistake of not playing cards that could help you in a tiebreaker. And with the upcoming fullscreen landscape UI, the game will finally feel like it’s meant to be played on PC.
