You post has been removed for violating Rule 6 of the subreddit. Please ensure your self-promotion is at a reasonable level (below **10%** of your site-wide submissions) and that you engage with the community outside of your posts.
Please seek moderator approval before posting contests, giveaways, or AMAs. Do not repost this content.
The RNG.
It's just really hard to coach someone in a game that's decided on coin flips and that's what Marvel Snap is.
You can't coach someone to play around cards like Agent Coulson (what do they have?), Sersi (what will they have?), Hela (where will their power be?) etc. A lot of games come down to just throwing stuff on the board and hoping you come out on top. That's not competitive play. I enjoy being outplayed. Losing to a coin flip is just boring - you can't learn anything from that.
When a client loses the last round of infinite conquest because Ego popped up in the deciding game, what can I coach them? Be luckier next time?
Could you expand on this a little?
My view is RNG is just probabilities, and in Conquest, reduces the margin of error.
So against Hela, you can run math. Often times, where they play Hela is fairly predictable since they want to increase the chances of larger cards going to other locations. You know what cards they discarded, so if your chances to win are 50% or better, it’s always right to stay. You just accept there are very few 100% guaranteed wins. The same as a Destroy player having a surprise Cosmo.
In Conquest, losing to Ego in the last round stinks. I’ve been there. But blaming the loss on Ego seems misplaced. You got into that position by losing more cubes than you should’ve earlier. So my loss actually happened in Rd2 when I lost 4 cubes instead of the Ego round. Because now I removed my ability to retreat.
Simply, RNG means you have to rely on math. Or you rely on great snapping and retreating. RNG applies to everyone and doesn’t target individual players.
The Ego example was extreme but based on real events. My client was having an otherwise really good, fair match. The snapping and retreating from both were on point, it had come down to the wire based on excellent play. Then the decision was taken away from them.
The problem comes with how can I, as someone who is charging money for this, coach someone on dealing with the heavy amounts of RNG. It's hard to explain to someone that they made the right play, but there was no way of knowing Agent Coulson had given their opponent Stegron, which moved a key card and cost them the game. Nocturne turned the location into Isle of Silence, which turned off your Iron Man. In a lot of these cases, they were right to stay, right to Snap and lost to nothing but dumb luck. And it's happening way too often for me to feel comfortable charging people.
Ah. That makes more sense from the charging money standpoint and people not “feeling” it was the right decision based on the result. Thanks for the additional clarification!
I'm okay with the RNG because the game basically tells you upfront that it'll have RNG.
I had to give up Hearthstone because of that, though. The RNG got worse and worse over the years (been there since beta)
Yeah, I'm not saying it's bad for the game or anything, but it makes it less competitive and coachable.
I'm not sure I can explain why, but I find it more palatable in Hearthstone.
We all have our own tastes and preferences :)
Nope. Teach them how not to tilt. The coinflip, flips both ways. Or how to build decks that cope with the RNG, control it or weaponise it. Teach them how to snap, the when and why so that they can reach infinite every month. Teach them how to go off-meta, counter meta or embrace the meta. Depending on the type of client, their collection, playstyle and wallet. There is tons of stuff you could coach people with and there are enough clueless whales that would love to actually learn the intricacies of the game. Sounds to me you just couldn't find your niche in the market of Snap and decided to just take a dump on the game while on your way out. A fairweather coach.
Oh... ehh... a question. This is an AMA after all. I don't have a question. Was just actually taking a dump and scrolling reddit. Soo ehh... how's your day going sir? Good?
My day is really good, thanks. I always take Monday's off so it's like an extra weekend day that I get to myself.
I'm ignoring the patroinising part of your message, but just to say I'm not dumping on Snap. I still play it and really enjoy it. It's a fucking incredible game. But it's increasingly difficult to coach on coin flips, I didn't make the call lightly and my clients all agreed.
They all agreed? I've been a coach myself. Rarely have I had a group where all noses pointed in the same direction. You must be really good. Shame you couldn't find your niche in Snap. Good luck on your further endeavours.
Well I'm good at my job, sure, but I think it's more about being lucky to have great clients. I don't take on anyone who I think will be a dick, lol. Also, most of my clients aren't exclusively for Marvel Snap so it's just a case of moving the focus to another game.
As you'll know, coaching is really hard work! I just need to put that effort where it's best for me and those who are paying me. At the moment, Snap isn't it.
I'm still enjoying the game though!
Somebody could say the same thing about poker, how can I coach around somebody else getting delt aces? How can I coach around somebody losing on the last card draw?
You sound like the Phil helmuth of marvel snap
Ooh, I drew Sentry. That reduces my opponent's odds of having Sentry by 0%.
Sentry also popped up on X Mansion, that further reduces the odds of my opponent having Sentry by another 0%.
I always enjoyed Stature & Black Bolt decks.
I had a deck that used those with Jeff and Miles Morales. The idea was to move Jeff on 5 and play Black Bolt. Then you had a 1-cost Miles and a 1-cost Stature you could play with Ms Marvel or old DarkHawk on turn 6. That was such a fun deck.
That kind of combo stuff has always been my favourite. The Daken/Samurai combo is another one like that.
Ooh that's a good idea.
I love big unexpected power decks. I think I'm going to combine that with a squirrel girl/mysterio deck and try to land stature/mockingbird/miles/Cull turn 6
Provided you're good enough, winning Infinite Conquest is based on nothing but getting lucky with the match ups.
If you want to win IC, the best thing to do is pick a deck you enjoy, one you know how to snap and retreat well with and just keep trying.
Marvel Snap leans very heavily on its counter cards and Conquest bizarrely has no option to alter your deck. So if you pick a deck like Junk, you're just screwed if you queue into a Killmonger deck (unless they're really bad at snapping).
Personally, I like taking those 'Good Stuff' type decks into Conquest. Decks based around cards like DarkHawk and Ms Marvel for stats, then a bunch of good cards depending on what you're seeing a lot of. Like Jeff because he's awesome, Mobius to help with the Loki and Ravonna decks, Nocturne to shut down Limbo, etc. I think Cosmo is a powerful counter that's not getting much play. There's a lot of Surfer and Gilgamesh stuff that a good Cosmo read can shut down.
A good tip for Conquest is remember the stakes change in the later rounds. It's easy to think you're in trouble if you're forced to retreat the first couple of games and talk yourself into staying in a game you shouldn't. If the match up is bad, be patient. Wait for when your opponent's draw isn't coming together, wait for when you have a strong hand and locations that help (or at least don't fuck you) and then Snap aggressively.
Another tip, if you're not someone who's very familiar with the meta, is to have Untapped open on their deck page and quickly add the cards your opponent is playing as you see them. You'll get an idea of what other cards to expect as it filters the results.
Play a deck you enjoy, recognise when you're tilted and take a break.
how were you able to teach people though there egos?
I find it so hard to talk with any of my mates about improving there game (and mine) or any game for that matter. cause they let there ego get in the way of actually learning something.
I'm at an advantage here as people come to me specifically so I can help them, so they tend to be more receptive to my brutal feedback.
When I want them to try something new, we head to the proving grounds where there's nothing to lose in having a go. I wish ranked play had a floor every 10 ranks so you could experiment without the fear of plummeting.
Is there something in particular your friends are unreceptive to?
Just curious if you have any other game that you would recommended atm? I love Snap but I can't really put my entire passion into it since I don't have a complete collection and can't play what I want.
There's nothing quite like Snap, the gameplay mechanic is so quick and fun.
I still play a lot of poker and Hearthstone. If you don't mind longer games and slower meta changes, Hearthstone is fun.
I hear the collection woes though, but if you find the gameplay fun, I'd stick with it. You'll get the cards eventually.
As I said in a reply to your other comment - I can really explain why, but I find the RNG in Hearthstone far less of a problem, personally.
Each to their own!
That period where it felt like every card they added was too strong. Original Ms Marvel, Werewolf By Night, Loki, Alioth, Elsa Bloodstone - all far too strong on release and it gave everyone the perception that new cards were always going to be the way to win.
It's got so much better now, with new cards being fun and playable, but very rarely too strong.
If you want a single incident, I'm struggling to think of one. I would say either the first Mobius M Mobius adjustment or the recent 4-cost Leech. They were both howlers.
How did you get into card game coaching? Were you a good player first and people were already looking to you for advice? Did you coach other things (kids soccer, for example) and make the jump to card games? How/where do/did you advertise your services to attract clients?
The short answer is I just got extremely lucky!
I've always enjoyed poker and when I went to university, there was a very big, friendly local poker community with several games happening most weeks. I managed to make a bit of a name for myself and one of my friends recommended me to someone who was looking to improve and was willing to pay for coaching. Looking back, I was AWFUL at coaching then, but I knew straight away I wanted to do it full time.
It grew from there because of how connected that community was. Without that, I doubt I'd have made it to full-time.
I've advertised on the internet - facebook groups, poker forums, etc. Paid for advertising at events and competitions. And by simply visiting board game shops and asking if I can stick a poster up.
You post has been removed for violating Rule 6 of the subreddit. Please ensure your self-promotion is at a reasonable level (below **10%** of your site-wide submissions) and that you engage with the community outside of your posts. Please seek moderator approval before posting contests, giveaways, or AMAs. Do not repost this content.
Why’d you quit Snap?
The RNG. It's just really hard to coach someone in a game that's decided on coin flips and that's what Marvel Snap is. You can't coach someone to play around cards like Agent Coulson (what do they have?), Sersi (what will they have?), Hela (where will their power be?) etc. A lot of games come down to just throwing stuff on the board and hoping you come out on top. That's not competitive play. I enjoy being outplayed. Losing to a coin flip is just boring - you can't learn anything from that. When a client loses the last round of infinite conquest because Ego popped up in the deciding game, what can I coach them? Be luckier next time?
Could you expand on this a little? My view is RNG is just probabilities, and in Conquest, reduces the margin of error. So against Hela, you can run math. Often times, where they play Hela is fairly predictable since they want to increase the chances of larger cards going to other locations. You know what cards they discarded, so if your chances to win are 50% or better, it’s always right to stay. You just accept there are very few 100% guaranteed wins. The same as a Destroy player having a surprise Cosmo. In Conquest, losing to Ego in the last round stinks. I’ve been there. But blaming the loss on Ego seems misplaced. You got into that position by losing more cubes than you should’ve earlier. So my loss actually happened in Rd2 when I lost 4 cubes instead of the Ego round. Because now I removed my ability to retreat. Simply, RNG means you have to rely on math. Or you rely on great snapping and retreating. RNG applies to everyone and doesn’t target individual players.
The Ego example was extreme but based on real events. My client was having an otherwise really good, fair match. The snapping and retreating from both were on point, it had come down to the wire based on excellent play. Then the decision was taken away from them. The problem comes with how can I, as someone who is charging money for this, coach someone on dealing with the heavy amounts of RNG. It's hard to explain to someone that they made the right play, but there was no way of knowing Agent Coulson had given their opponent Stegron, which moved a key card and cost them the game. Nocturne turned the location into Isle of Silence, which turned off your Iron Man. In a lot of these cases, they were right to stay, right to Snap and lost to nothing but dumb luck. And it's happening way too often for me to feel comfortable charging people.
Ah. That makes more sense from the charging money standpoint and people not “feeling” it was the right decision based on the result. Thanks for the additional clarification!
I'm okay with the RNG because the game basically tells you upfront that it'll have RNG. I had to give up Hearthstone because of that, though. The RNG got worse and worse over the years (been there since beta)
Yeah, I'm not saying it's bad for the game or anything, but it makes it less competitive and coachable. I'm not sure I can explain why, but I find it more palatable in Hearthstone. We all have our own tastes and preferences :)
Nope. Teach them how not to tilt. The coinflip, flips both ways. Or how to build decks that cope with the RNG, control it or weaponise it. Teach them how to snap, the when and why so that they can reach infinite every month. Teach them how to go off-meta, counter meta or embrace the meta. Depending on the type of client, their collection, playstyle and wallet. There is tons of stuff you could coach people with and there are enough clueless whales that would love to actually learn the intricacies of the game. Sounds to me you just couldn't find your niche in the market of Snap and decided to just take a dump on the game while on your way out. A fairweather coach. Oh... ehh... a question. This is an AMA after all. I don't have a question. Was just actually taking a dump and scrolling reddit. Soo ehh... how's your day going sir? Good?
My day is really good, thanks. I always take Monday's off so it's like an extra weekend day that I get to myself. I'm ignoring the patroinising part of your message, but just to say I'm not dumping on Snap. I still play it and really enjoy it. It's a fucking incredible game. But it's increasingly difficult to coach on coin flips, I didn't make the call lightly and my clients all agreed.
They all agreed? I've been a coach myself. Rarely have I had a group where all noses pointed in the same direction. You must be really good. Shame you couldn't find your niche in Snap. Good luck on your further endeavours.
Well I'm good at my job, sure, but I think it's more about being lucky to have great clients. I don't take on anyone who I think will be a dick, lol. Also, most of my clients aren't exclusively for Marvel Snap so it's just a case of moving the focus to another game. As you'll know, coaching is really hard work! I just need to put that effort where it's best for me and those who are paying me. At the moment, Snap isn't it. I'm still enjoying the game though!
Somebody could say the same thing about poker, how can I coach around somebody else getting delt aces? How can I coach around somebody losing on the last card draw? You sound like the Phil helmuth of marvel snap
If you don't know the difference between playing with a fixed 52 card deck and 200+ cards per side, I can't help you.
Ooh, I drew Sentry. That reduces my opponent's odds of having Sentry by 0%. Sentry also popped up on X Mansion, that further reduces the odds of my opponent having Sentry by another 0%.
Bingo!
What’s your favourite deck (or previous iteration of a deck) in Marvel Snap history?
I always enjoyed Stature & Black Bolt decks. I had a deck that used those with Jeff and Miles Morales. The idea was to move Jeff on 5 and play Black Bolt. Then you had a 1-cost Miles and a 1-cost Stature you could play with Ms Marvel or old DarkHawk on turn 6. That was such a fun deck. That kind of combo stuff has always been my favourite. The Daken/Samurai combo is another one like that.
Ooh that's a good idea. I love big unexpected power decks. I think I'm going to combine that with a squirrel girl/mysterio deck and try to land stature/mockingbird/miles/Cull turn 6
Is there a deck you’d recommend for an Infinity Conquest run in the current meta?
Provided you're good enough, winning Infinite Conquest is based on nothing but getting lucky with the match ups. If you want to win IC, the best thing to do is pick a deck you enjoy, one you know how to snap and retreat well with and just keep trying. Marvel Snap leans very heavily on its counter cards and Conquest bizarrely has no option to alter your deck. So if you pick a deck like Junk, you're just screwed if you queue into a Killmonger deck (unless they're really bad at snapping). Personally, I like taking those 'Good Stuff' type decks into Conquest. Decks based around cards like DarkHawk and Ms Marvel for stats, then a bunch of good cards depending on what you're seeing a lot of. Like Jeff because he's awesome, Mobius to help with the Loki and Ravonna decks, Nocturne to shut down Limbo, etc. I think Cosmo is a powerful counter that's not getting much play. There's a lot of Surfer and Gilgamesh stuff that a good Cosmo read can shut down. A good tip for Conquest is remember the stakes change in the later rounds. It's easy to think you're in trouble if you're forced to retreat the first couple of games and talk yourself into staying in a game you shouldn't. If the match up is bad, be patient. Wait for when your opponent's draw isn't coming together, wait for when you have a strong hand and locations that help (or at least don't fuck you) and then Snap aggressively. Another tip, if you're not someone who's very familiar with the meta, is to have Untapped open on their deck page and quickly add the cards your opponent is playing as you see them. You'll get an idea of what other cards to expect as it filters the results. Play a deck you enjoy, recognise when you're tilted and take a break.
how were you able to teach people though there egos? I find it so hard to talk with any of my mates about improving there game (and mine) or any game for that matter. cause they let there ego get in the way of actually learning something.
I'm at an advantage here as people come to me specifically so I can help them, so they tend to be more receptive to my brutal feedback. When I want them to try something new, we head to the proving grounds where there's nothing to lose in having a go. I wish ranked play had a floor every 10 ranks so you could experiment without the fear of plummeting. Is there something in particular your friends are unreceptive to?
Just curious if you have any other game that you would recommended atm? I love Snap but I can't really put my entire passion into it since I don't have a complete collection and can't play what I want.
There's nothing quite like Snap, the gameplay mechanic is so quick and fun. I still play a lot of poker and Hearthstone. If you don't mind longer games and slower meta changes, Hearthstone is fun. I hear the collection woes though, but if you find the gameplay fun, I'd stick with it. You'll get the cards eventually.
Wait, you gave up Snap because of RNG but you still play Hearthstone?? Unless you play Battlegrounds exclusively, your reasoning makes no sense lmao
As I said in a reply to your other comment - I can really explain why, but I find the RNG in Hearthstone far less of a problem, personally. Each to their own!
What was Snap's biggest misstep in your opinion?
That period where it felt like every card they added was too strong. Original Ms Marvel, Werewolf By Night, Loki, Alioth, Elsa Bloodstone - all far too strong on release and it gave everyone the perception that new cards were always going to be the way to win. It's got so much better now, with new cards being fun and playable, but very rarely too strong. If you want a single incident, I'm struggling to think of one. I would say either the first Mobius M Mobius adjustment or the recent 4-cost Leech. They were both howlers.
How did you get into card game coaching? Were you a good player first and people were already looking to you for advice? Did you coach other things (kids soccer, for example) and make the jump to card games? How/where do/did you advertise your services to attract clients?
The short answer is I just got extremely lucky! I've always enjoyed poker and when I went to university, there was a very big, friendly local poker community with several games happening most weeks. I managed to make a bit of a name for myself and one of my friends recommended me to someone who was looking to improve and was willing to pay for coaching. Looking back, I was AWFUL at coaching then, but I knew straight away I wanted to do it full time. It grew from there because of how connected that community was. Without that, I doubt I'd have made it to full-time. I've advertised on the internet - facebook groups, poker forums, etc. Paid for advertising at events and competitions. And by simply visiting board game shops and asking if I can stick a poster up.