Economy - Marvel Snap & Legends of Runeterra: What is the truth?

A recent tweet claiming Marvel Snap is more expensive than Hearthstone has the internet buzzing. The speech was given shortly after the price increases on Hearthstone, which angered the game's community, and led some people to reveal their desire to leave Hearthstone and go to Marvel Snap.

As the owner of the tweet is a content creator about Legends of Runeterra, the discussion turned into a competition between LoR and Marvel Snap, where LoR players mock the Marvel game and insist that this is a pay to win game, and it's impossible to get the cards or be a competitive player. Is it really that? Let's see!

I downloaded the game during the open beta in June and stayed with it until mid-July. The reason I stopped playing was because, at the time, the game only existed in .apk format, and you had to download it from the internet. Whenever an update came out, it was necessary to uninstall the version that was on the cell phone and download the new one. This whole process drove me crazy whenever a new update came out, so I opted to wait for the official version to arrive, which came in October.

In my short period (a month and a half) in the game, I didn't spend a penny and completed Pools 1 and 2, in addition to getting about 3 cards from Pool 3. Since I came back, I only bought the passes (except for the ones that gave Miles Morales), the Welcome Pack and the Jubilee Pack. Putting all this together, it should cost something around $ 50, but it is worth noting that all these things I bought were OPTIONAL and did not drastically impact my progress in ranking or my collection.

In time: I completed Pool 3 in January of this year, but along the way 3 cards from Pool 4 and a super rare one, Thanos, from Pool 5. So, it took just over 3 months to complete the main collection of cards.

As for the passes, yes, I have to be honest and say that Zabu and Silver Surfer were exclusive cards that impacted and defined the meta and I think it's wrong to have cards like that being acquired first for money and then getting it for free. But there are some counterpoints: there were counters for the cards that are available from Pool 1, it is possible to move up in rank with decks only from Pool 1, 2 and 3 and the developers realized that they passed the point and nerfed the cards.

Going back to my personal experience with the game, even buying passes for these broken cards, I didn't spam them on the ladder because I have decks that I prefer to play, like Devil Dinosaur and Dracula Lockjaw (both decks don't have Pool 4 cards, 5 or pass) and that make me do well in the ranked queue of the game. Almost every season I've been in the 80s, bordering 90 (the last rank is Infinite, which is reached when the player reaches 100), so yes, I can say that in Marvel Snap it is possible to be a competitive player and get the cards you want without spending money.

To contribute to this topic I bring the streamer OceanMud's recommendation, who ranks as the number 1 player in the free to play category and plays only with decks without cards pass and Pools 4 and 5, that is, without spending money on the game. He tends to reach Infinity every season, so he's a great example of a competitive player who doesn't spend money to "boost" performance.

About Marvel Snap's economy

In Snap, the player needs credits to level up his cards, gain collection levels and open boxes that may or may not see new cards (in the beginning it is guaranteed, but when they reach Pool 3, the boxes start to have the luck factor in the opening time).

These credits are acquired by doing the daily quests (free), completing the weekly challenge (also free) and are also available as rewards (free and paid) in the pass, in ranked queue progress rewards and can also be purchased with gold (which the player gets to win for free, but can also buy with money).

Weekly, completing all the daily missions and the weekly challenge, it is possible to reach an amount close to 4,500 credits. To level up a card to infinity, 1,525 credits are spent, so this weekly amount can be used to level up almost 3 cards and achieve 90+ levels of collection, so in a little over a month, the beginner player will probably already be able to complete Pools one and two.

Also, there are paid packages that come with credits. These, in turn, tend to be quite expensive and a definitive one that is in the game and recommended for beginners costs a lot. I went into this subject in depth in another article, which you can access here.

About the economy in Legends of Runeterra

In LoR, the player can buy cards with essence or wildcards. These "coins" are acquired in free rewards, whereas you play, you earn xp and with xp you unlock a series of rewards, including chests and capsules that give cards of various rarities, essences and many wildcards.

In addition, every week there is the weekly vault, which, as the person plays, gains xp and fills it up and can give countless rewards. Another facility is the ability to choose which region the player will win the cards from, as it makes the player acquire exactly the right resources to build the deck they want.

Here it is more complex to respond to the amount of time a player takes to complete their collection, as it is usually much faster given the diversity of ways to earn xp. I will name a few and also the prices of each card.

There are challenges that are a kind of tutorial, which if you do them all, they give a total of 5400 xp. There are also daily missions that usually give 1000 xp and in the first victory of the day the player earns an additional 400 xp. Anyway, there's no shortage of ways to get xp in LoR. The xp fills the vault, which when opened, gives essences, some cards and wildcards. The higher the vault level, the greater the quantity and quality of rewards.

Now about the card prices, they are as follows: 100 essence for a common card, 300 for a rare card, 1200 for an epic card and 3000 for a champion card.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that although there is the possibility of buying wildcards with money, in LoR, there are no other ways to boost the progress of acquiring cards with money. The products available for purchase are cosmetics, which do not bring advantages to the player, therefore, LoR is classified as a free to play game.

It's a little unfair to compare LoR to any card game out there, as the main feature of the Riot Games game is the excellent economy. LoR will always win when it comes to economics.

But is a card game only based on a good economy? No. It's a lot of factors like playability, playtime and fun. Yes, fun! Although competitive is a strong point in card games, we need to remember the fun. Currently, I have more fun with Marvel Snap, mainly due to the dynamism of the matches and the short duration between games. With 30 minutes on Snap I can play about 6 games, while on LoR, depending on the deck I'm on, this could be the time of a single game.

I need to make it clear that my intention here is not to imply that one game is better than the other, quite the contrary, I'm just saying that currently I'm having more fun with one, but I still like and play LoR. Both games have their highs and lows, and the good thing about liking both is that the moment I get bored with one's Metagame, I can go to the other and alternate between them.

What is regrettable is the existence of influential people in the LoR community who use their considerable engagement to make misleading comments, which in turn, shape the opinions of people who have not even tested Snap and start to replicate the opinions of others, in addition to create a mechanism of aversion to the game that was provoked by this imposition.

I remember the moment when Marvel Snap officially launched and a very famous LoR content creator went to play the game. He spent just under a day playing and soon released a video on his channel, claiming that Marvel Snap was the newest scam, bringing calculations that did not match reality and opinions that only reflected hours of play. It is obvious that if I play just one day, I will feel that the game economy is terrible, and I will never have the cards I want. If this content creator had spent a week in the game, maybe he would have noticed that things aren't so complicated.

But then it was too late: his followers had already bought the idea that Marvel Snap was a P2W game and didn't even play it, and worse: some friends of mine who played the game stopped playing because of it. I tried to convince them that it wasn't like that and one listened to me, started to play casually, and today he's already in Pool 3, having fun and with many cool cards and decks.

It is irresponsible to use its enormous reach to shape people's opinions based on a poor experience in a new game. Importantly, Marvel Snap will not displace LoR or any other game. They can all co-exist, and it's not a crime to like both or even a handful of other card games.

I close this article by inviting LoR players to give a chance for Marvel Snap, and I ask the same for Marvel Snap players.

You own your opinions and truths, don't let someone take that out of your lives. Both games can be downloaded for free, and you will only know what you think of it if you try it, correct? Go do that and then come back here to share your experiences with me!