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How to Win a Draft Run
By now, most of us have played enough Draft runs to experience both thrill and heartbreak. You might still be waiting for your first big win: five wins before two losses.
There’s no denying Draft’s luck factor. Of course, playing good Snap is important. The decisions between games matter, too! Sometimes the right choice is the boring one… or the wild swing! Sometimes your best option is the Skip button! Here’s what I’ve learned over many games of Draft: a collection of tips to push your win rate higher, whether you’re chasing your first big win or your next one.
Advanced Augments and Other Upgrades
Your starter set and other choices shape the upgrades you’re offered later, including Augments! That’s actually why Destroy is my favorite deck in Draft.
Destroy brings a bunch of powerful Augments that synergize beautifully with its gameplan. My favorite is the interaction between On Reveals and regeneration. Put Wakandan Tech on a Nimrod to have every copy double Power (again). Put Regeneration on Ironheart to add +6 Power to your board every time you destroy her.
When offered an upgrade, consider how it fits into your deck as a whole. You’ll sometimes get offered an Augment or stat change that makes your deck worse. This is when you need to play like a robot. It’s not fun to skip an upgrade, but your deck might depend on it!
One common culprit is the Regroup Augment, which sends your lowest-Cost card at the location back to your hand with +3 Power. Great with cheap, powerful On Reveals like The Hood. Costly if you’re bouncing expensive stuff back to your hand.
{Editor: images for Leader and Iron Man}
Another upgrade type that might be correct to skip sometimes changes both a card’s Cost and its Power at the same time. Some of the stat pairs I’ve been offered are 1/1, 2/2, and 6/14. Depending on the card, these upgrades can be amazing! 1/1/ Leader? 6/14 Iron Man?! Even a good upgrade can push your deck away from its current gameplan. When that happens, don’t hesitate to skip!
Finally, a tip for a handful of cards and locations: cards keep their Augments when they transform! Enjoy your mobile Hulk next time you see Gamma Lab!
Legendary Picks
Sometimes, you’ll be offered Legendary draft options. They’ll often push your deck in a completely new direction. Think Dormammu for Destroy, or Thanos for Swarm.
Be considerate of any rare choice! Narrower cards are fun to play with because they don’t show up often, but they’re often harder to support with synergy. Just because something is rarer doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for your deck.
This goes doubly for Legendary starter sets. I’ll avoid spoiling too many, but a couple I’ve seen are Ozymandias and Fantasticar. It’s clear these shape your future offers. Despite no “Rock” tag, I got offers like Sandstorm and Mole Man after selecting the Ozymandias starter. Or Adam Warlock, Thena, and the Overtime Augment (which repeats End of Turn abilities) with Fantasticar.
My Fantasticar run went great, by the way! My other runs with Legendary starters have fallen short – even after drafting compatible cards. Some decks just struggle with the Draft format because they can’t focus enough on their core plan. The moral of the story? When you want to win, favor consistency over rarity.
When to Gamble
While consistency is king, there’s another path. Taking a chance on a card or upgrade early in a run can totally pay off! Of course this can flop, but the right combination can give you a two-card combo that’ll carry you through an entire run.
It’s totally valid if gambling is your style! Take enough wild swings and… well, it’ll hurt your average results, but the hits could be huge! It’s incredibly fun to build around one or two overpowered cards that can steamroll (y’know, as long as you draw them).
The Game Outside the Game
Take breaks! You’ll make better choices when you’re not heated or tired. Play like a robot. Stay frosty.
I know all too well how easy it is to say “one more game”… over and over again. It’s great when you’re having fun, but this is about winning! I love that Draft makes it so easy to pause. You can even save a draft choice for the next moment you have spare time. On that note, don’t start a game unless you’re sure you have the five minutes to finish it!
Keeping up with the login calendars should give you plenty of Respawn Tokens. With a win rate of 33–67% (which should be almost everybody), you’ll have enough Respawn Tokens to spend one every time you end a run with at least two wins. Obviously, having an extra life dramatically increases your chance of reaching that five-win victory, so don’t be stingy!
Finally, for those of you who have already won several Draft runs, make sure to spread out those wins! It can be tempting to keep playing right after you win your Ticket back, but you can only win one Premium Mystery Variant per day. Of course, you can prepare a four-win run and close it out as soon as the day rolls over!
Conclusion
Like any game of Snap, you’ll never have total control in Draft. Even with the perfect Augment or Legendary pull, your opponent might have the perfect counter. We can’t eliminate luck, but we can do our best to mitigate it. Over many runs, those little improvements will add up to more wins.
Play the best Snap you can. Make the boring choice when it’s right. Skip the upgrade that doesn’t fit. Take that wild swing (maybe). And when you land that sweet, sweet winning run? Drop the robot act and enjoy the confetti!
This article was featured in-game by Second Dinner during the inaugural run of MARVEL SNAP Draft.