How Activate Works in Marvel Snap

For the first time in its two-year run, Marvel Snap is getting a new mechanic, Activate, and as you’d expect, it’s a bit more complicated than what we’ve seen before. Activate joins On Reveal and Ongoing as a mechanic, so let’s take a closer look at how it works.

How Does Activate Work in Marvel Snap?

If a card has the Activate keyword in its text, you will have to press and hold until the Activate message appears. A card that can be activated will have a yellow, glowing target while an activated card will have matte blue text above it when selected. You can press and hold on the card again to deactivate the card’s ability.

These cards can be activated on any turn after the turn they’re played — which means that an Activate card cannot be activated on the same turn it is played. This also means that an Activate card’s ability is useless on the final turn of the game if it wasn’t previously played.

Take Symbiote Spider-Man, for instance, which merges with the lowest-cost card at the same location. You have to play Symbiote Spider-Man, end the turn, and on the next turn press and hold to activate the card. Only then, after you hit End Turn, will Symbiote Spider-Man merge with another card.

Activate abilities take effect sequentially with other card effects and play out after selecting End Turn. As a result, if you play an On Reveal card before triggering an Activate ability, that On Reveal effect will happen first, and vice versa.

All Activate Cards in Marvel Snap

The Amazing Spider-Season of Marvel Snap will introduce three new cards with Activate abilities, alongside giving a currently unknown number of older cards Activate abilities. Here’s the cards we know about so far, and we’ll update when we have the full list:

New Activate Cards

• Symbiote Spider-Man (September 3) – Activate: Merge your lowest-Cost card here with this. Copy its text like it just revealed.
• Arana (September 17) – Activate: Give the next card you play +2 Power and move it to the right.
• Scarlet Spider (September 24) – Activate: Add an exact clone of this to another location.

Reworked Activate Cards

• Black Swan – Activate: Until the end of your next turn, your 1-Cost cards cost 0. (Unconfirmed text)
• Hellcow – Activate: Discard two cards from your hand. (Unconfirmed text)
• More coming soon.

That’s all you need to know about the Activate mechanic in Marvel Snap. It will undoubtedly lead to new powerful decks and strategies.