Snap Into Marvel: The Clock Is Ticking In Deadpool’s Diner

Deadpool’s Diner is Marvel Snap’s latest game-within-the game. Like Conquest Mode, it exists outside the season-long “ladder climb”. But it differs from both Conquest and the “regular” mode of the game in some important ways. Understanding those differences will be key to playing it well. 

First, the basics: in Deadpool’s Diner, you play a round of Marvel Snap where the wager is “bubs” instead cubes (does the fact that the currency is some kind of nonsensical object based on a catchphrase both fit the Deadpool theme AND make it slightly harder to wrap your head around because “bub” is just a word, not something with an analogous physical object in the real world? Yes). Play games, win bubs. There’s a rewards track, not unlike the Collection Level track, where, the more bubs you win, the more prizes you earn. Prizes include everything from credits to gold to variants to borders to boosters to “bubs” and more, with the “grand prize”, so to speak, being the Cassandra Nova variant (you win the “regular” card a few slots beneath the variant). Like Conquest, there are also “tiers” of play: Instead of Proving Grounds, Silver, Gold, you can play “Menu Upgrades” like Cereal, Pancakes, Grilled Cheese, etc. However, you need a certain number of bubs in hand to be able to play at the next “menu” level (they unlock as you accumulate bubs) AND the number of bubs you can wager and win (or lose!) increases in each food-themed tier. 

As far as losing bubs, you never lose ground on the rewards track (just like the Collection Level), even if you wager all your bubs and lose. This has led some players, particularly early on, to treat Deadpool’s Diner like the Proving Grounds, a near stakes-less game in which you don’t need to exercise the same kind of snap-and-retreat discipline as on the ladder or the higher Conquest tiers. However, while you won’t lose ground on the Rewards Track, you need bubs to keep playing. So if you wager all your bubs and lose them all, you won’t be able to play in Deadpool’s Diner until you get more, either by purchasing them (via gold) or waiting for them to auto-generate, which they do every eight hours. 

If you’re a player who just wants to mess around and play the game without worrying about your place on the ladder while winning some extra rewards, it doesn’t really matter. But if you want to win ALL the rewards — particularly the Cassandra Nova card, which won’t be available anywhere else in the game until she joins Series 5 next season — you will need to exercise some discipline. Both because the number of bubs needed to win the higher prizes is huge – 15 million for the baseline Nova card — and because, unlike all other Snap modes, the game will automatically snap at rounds 4,5, and 6, doubling the number of bubs on the line each time. This is in addition to any snaps the players make (each player can do so twice, just like in other modes). If you enter a “Grilled Cheese” game starting at 320 bubs, by the end, you could stand to lose 40,960 bubs. Win, and that Nova card is all the closer. Lose, and you’ll need that many more to hit those upper rewards. 

For anyone who wants to get all those prizes, this makes knowing when to Snap and Retreat all the more important. A solid strategy would be playing a deck where you know whether or not you have the cards you need to compete in hand by turn 3 (the last possible round before the stakes get raised, assuming no one snaps before that). Like a Mister Negative deck, where you know you need to get Mister Negative out on three (or four with Magik), or Phoenix Force, where you need a move card, a way to destroy it, and Phoenix Force in hand in order to reliably compete. Unlike the Proving Grounds, this isn’t the place to tinker with a deck or try out a new play style (unless you absolutely don’t care about climbing the rewards ladder). You want something you can pilot reliably with clearly-defined early plays so you can bail intelligently before the stakes get raised. 

Another unique element to Deadpool’s Diner is that it’s a limited time event: it ends when the season does. So the clock is ticking if you want that free Cassandra Nova card. Which makes finding the right balance between “levels” in the game important too. Like with poker, the more bubs you and your opponent put into the pot, the more you stand to win — speeding your climb up the rewards ladder — or lose, slowing it as you wait for the auto-regeneration of more bubs. Finding that balance (unless you’re fine just spending gold to get more bubs) between what you’re willing to wager and what you’re willing to lose is important.

Ultimately, Deadpool’s Diner will likely play out the same as everything else in the game: the devoted, hardcore players with lots of time or money (or both) on their hands will tear through it fast (indeed, most of the top players in the game are already turning in their reviews of the Cassandra Nova card). The more casual players will pop in periodically, play a few undisciplined rounds, maybe get a new border or avatar, then move on. And everyone else — in whose group I count myself — will do their best to navigate those two extremes, getting the most rewards possible without being completely overwhelmed by the game.

There are aspects to Deadpool’s Diner that aren’t great — the scale of bubs needed to get the better rewards still feels too high, making it a season-long event instead of a week-and-half would give it a better tempo, and “bubs” are still a stupid term for the fake currency — but it’s good to see Second Dinner playing with different game modes and adding wrinkles to the standard gameplay. Hopefully that’s something they’ll continue to do moving forward, even if Deadpool’s Diner has some wrinkles.