Marvel SNAP Spotlight Cache & Keys system

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The Spotlight System and Keys

At Collection Level 610, all players unlock their first Spotlight Key and gain access to the Spotlight system, the main pathway for acquiring Series 4 and 5 cards. At the start of every season, Second Dinner announces the spotlight week contents for that season. Every week, there are 4 slots: 3 curated, featured cards and 1 Mystery Slot.

Every 120 CL gained (about 6k credits worth) will give a free spotlight key; keys can also be acquired through bundles and as album rewards. Keys can be claimed on the track and hoarded for an indefinite amount of time until the player wants to use them.

Spotlight Caches - How do they work?

Every Spotlight banner will have 1 newly released card; the other 2 featured cards will be pre-existing Series 4 or 5 cards. Players can open Spotlight Caches by hold-pressing on the Spotlight Cache at the top of the CL track for 3 seconds (this is located on the left side of the screen for PC users). Every opening uses 1 Spotlight Key and will roll for one of the remaining card slots. Every slot has an equal chance to be pulled: 25% among 4, 33.33% among 3, 50% among 2, and guaranteed when there is only 1 slot left.

Every spotlight week divides its cards into groups of 4, indicated by a lock icon with X/4, each grouping containing 3 featured cards or Spotlight Variants and 1 Mystery Slot. When all 4 slots have been opened, the next group unlocks, where players can continue to use their Keys. If the player already owns one of the featured cards, that card's slot is replaced by its Spotlight Variant. If both the base card and Spotlight Variant are owned, the slot is replaced with a Premium Mystery Variant.

Spotlight Variants only run once throughout their week, and then are locked in the vault for about roughly 12 months. When acquiring a Spotlight Variant, players also get the avatar for that variant, and a special yellow and blue spotlight frame for that avatar. (See FAQ for more).

Mystery Slot

The Mystery Slot is in every group of Spotlight Caches and has a chance for ANY Series 4 and Series 5 card, even the ones that are currently featured in the week or ones that the player already owns. Every Mystery Slot has a 2/3 chance to be a Series 4 card and 1/3 to be a Series 5 card. It is also possible to open duplicate cards from the Mystery Slot, which will reimburse the player with 1000 tokens instead of unlocking a new card. The Mystery Slot will not prioritize giving a new card over giving a duplicate, the card selected is random.

Optimization

If playing actively, doing every daily mission and opening caches/reserves, all players can get 1 Spotlight Key a week, as well as some additional credits to work towards the next Key. It is heavily recommended to only open weeks if you have 4 keys, as that will guarantee you obtain any card you're after within a given spotlight week. If you are also focusing primarily on progression, it is also recommended to not open for Spotlight Variants, Premium Mystery Variants, or Mystery Slots, as variants are purely cosmetic value and the Mystery Slot can have many "duds".

This is a link to Untapped.gg’s Datamined Spotlight Cache schedule to help plan out spotlights (Datamined contents are unfinished and subject to change):

MARVEL SNAP Spotlight Caches Schedule

FAQ

Q: Will the Mystery Slot duplicate reward be improved in the future? A: The team wishes to improve the duplicate reward in the future but has no set plan currently (Source).

Q: Do Spotlight Variants or Avatars come back after their week? A: Spotlight Variants will enter the shop roughly 12 months after their week, under the "Spotlight" tag and with their own section in the shop. However, the Avatar and Border will stay exclusive to those who opened that week. The price for the Spotlight Variants that return is 2400 gold.

Q: Are there always a certain amount of Series 4 and Series 5 cards in a given week? A: No. Weeks can have all 3 featured cards being Series 4, or 5, or any possible ratio.

About this article

This article was written by several contributors from the Marvel SNAP’s Official Discord Wiki Team. The Wiki Team is a group of community members who work on and contribute articles to Marvel SNAP’s Discord Wiki. Learn more about this program.