Augment Deep-Dive
All about the new Draft Augments and Stat Boosts!
The upgrades to your cards is both the steepest learning curve of the new Marvel Snap Draft Mode and the most important key to winning! Let's go through each of the Augments and Boosts so you can hit the ground running in your next draft run!
How the Upgrades Work
You can get buffed cards during the drafting process or be offered Augments or Boosts during your run. You can use the skip button to pass on an upgrade, but that will very rarely be the correct choice. A card can have up to two Augments and doubly Augmented cards are often what will power you through successful runs. The Augments do have rarities and some will only appear if you have enough cards of a particular archetype in your deck already. Other Augments rely on some other rare occurrence and there are two "Secret Rarity" Augments! Boosts are simple Power or Cost changes that may be less fun than Augments, but are also incredibly impactful. There's one "Secret Rarity" Boost, too!
Some of the Augments will be found only on cards offered to you during the drafting process, while others will be available as upgrades as you move through the mode. I've organized them here roughly by how rare they are, with the secret upgrades at the end!
All of the Augments
Maneuverable
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
Moveable once.
Maneuverable does appear for decks with Move cards, but you won't be redundantly offered it on most of the cards that already have Moveable. It can be a good tool to smooth one of your non-movers into your synergistic Move deck.
Overload
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
At the start of each turn: +1 Energy if you are winning this location.
Overload can give an Energy boost to Control or Ramp decks and reward high-tempo play.
Rally
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
Ongoing: +1 Power for each of your other cards here.
The Swarm and Ongoing archetypes can get this Augment that is like the classic Captain America ability.
Salvage
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
On Reveal: Destroy your lowest-Power other card here for +4 Power.
A great common Augment to turbo-charge your Destroy deck. That it gives you an extra Destroy effect is almost enough on it's own in some runs, but the +4 Power is appreciated.
Sidekick
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
On Reveal: Add a random character to your hand. Give it -2 Cost.
Sidekick is one of the more flavorful Augments since it can give you a powerful sidekick to help you out! This is one of the key Augments in the Swarm archetype.
Reinforce
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
When this is Empowered, gain an additional +1 Power. (if in hand, in deck, or in play)
One of the few dedicated Boost archetype Augments, this is key to a solid Boost run.
Quickdraw: Discount
- Draft Rarity: Basic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
Quickdraw: -2 Cost
This can be offered on any card in any archetype, but there are definitely some dud hits. Try to get this onto a card that you always want to play out immediately.
Quickdraw: Power
- Draft Rarity: Advanced
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
Quickdraw: +3 Power.
The Power version of Quickdraw can also be offered in any archetype, but is especially powerful in combination with Empowerment effects and other Augments that can further leverage the Power.
Hot Pursuit
- Draft Rarity: Advanced/Basic (archetype dependent)
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
Cost 3 less if a card moved last turn.
A great Augment you'll be offered if you're in the Move archetype that helps the deck play more smoothly. Miles is excluded from the pool, thankfully.
Mentor
- Draft Rarity: Advanced
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Basic
On Reveal: Add this card's Power to the top character of your deck.
Mentor is more likely to appear in a Boost deck and, don't worry, The Hood is excluded from cards you can be offered this Augment on!
Regeneration
- Draft Rarity: Advanced/Basic (archetype dependent)
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
When Discarded or Destroyed: Regenerate this with +2 Power at a random location.
It puts any card through the Weapon X program and gives them Wolverine's healing factor! Can get silly with the right Destroy payoff.
Clone
- Draft Rarity: Advanced/Basic (archetype dependent)
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Rare
Game Start: Shuffle a copy of this into your deck.
Encore
- Draft Rarity: Advanced
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Rare
This card's On Reveal ability repeats.
Obviously powerful on things like Black Panther and Cannonball. There are some times where you'll be offered this one something incredibly useless like Juggernaut. A lot of cards in the Swarm and Boost archetype love this, though.
Overtime
- Draft Rarity: Advanced
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Rare
This card's End of Turn ability repeats twice.
If you can get this on a discounted Isca, you're gonna win that run!
Regroup
- Draft Rarity: Advanced
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Rare
On Reveal: Return your lowest-Cost card here to hand to give it +3 Power.
This is one of the trickiest Augments. It can make the right deck combo out of control, but there will be plenty of runs where it will feel like an obstacle in a high-curve deck. I wouldn't mind seeing this get a discount added for future runs.
Superstar
- Draft Rarity: Advanced/Basic (archetype dependent)
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Rare
Starts in your opening hand.
A bit of a tricky augment that can actually hinder you if you put it on the wrong card. It's solid on a low-Cost card, but it's amazing on your main combo piece – things like your main Destroy payoff or key Move card. Ongoing, Control, and Ramp will be offered this Augment more often.
Amplify
- Draft Rarity: Advanced/Epic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
This card's Ongoing effect applies an additional time.
You'll only be offered this if you have enough Ongoing cards. You do need to get a bit lucky to get it on the right card like Onslaught or Captain Carter.
Tag In
- Draft Rarity: Advanced/Epic (archetype dependent)
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
When one of your cards is destroyed, this replaces it from your hand or deck.
Yet another great Destroy Augment, this one isn't great on everything, but it can be run-defining.
Afterimage
- Draft Rarity: Epic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
When this moves, add an unmodified copy to the old location.
The new copy won't retain changes, but it can still be the key ability in a Move archetype run.
Wakandan Tech
- Draft Rarity: Epic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
On Reveal: Double this card's Power.
One of the best ways to get an out of control Destroy or On Reveal deck. You love to see this on a Nimrod since the copies will Double too!
Reality Warp
- Draft Rarity: Epic
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: N/A
On Reveal: Replace the location with a new one.
You'll see this a lot as an initial Augment. It doesn't help as much as the crushing Power of some other effects, but this can absolutely win games if you draft a cards with this. It kind of just feels like frosting on your cupcake.
Boosts
You may also be offered a stat boost!
Basic Boosts: -1 Cost, +2 Power
Rare Boosts: Power OR Cost (choose +4 or -2 Cost), Clone or Power (choose +3 Power or Shuffle in a Copy)
There are also a variety of boosts you can get during the drafting process, many of which are dependent on which archetype you're drafting. For example Set to 1/1 is related to Destroy, while set to 4 is related to Ramp decks.
-1 Cost, -2 Cost, -1 Cost and -1 Power, -1 Cost and -2 Power, +3 Power, +4 Power, +5 Power, Set Power to 7, Set Cost to 4, -1 Cost and -2 Power, Set to 1/1
Secret Upgrades
But that's not all! There are three super secret, incredibly rare upgrades! Don't expect to see these very often! Here's what they are and how they work!
Deadlink
- Draft Rarity: N/A
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Secret
On Reveal: Horde +4.
If you've already seen this you may be puzzled for what the conditions for this extremely rare Augment are. This will only be offered on cards that have a "Zombified" variant in the game or are Zombies themselves!
Gift of Thanos
- Draft Rarity: N/A
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Secret
Gift of Thanos grants the Augment "Silence," thereby removing its text, but comes with a fat +5 Power boost. There are plenty of cards this can be great on, and it's especially fun to get it onto a card with Wakandan Tech or Mentor! The text is removed, but not Augments! This won't be offered on 6 or 7-Cost cards or those with Game Start abilities.
Gamma Lab
- Draft Rarity: N/A
- Upgrade Encounter Rarity: Secret
Enter the gamma lab and choose one card to make a 6/14 or a 2/2! Sometimes it's a surprisingly difficult decision!
Final Thoughts
Learning to play towards potential Augments and making the right choices to which cards to Boost or Augment is just as important as the variance of which cards you're offered these effects on. It's a lot to learn, but luckily a lot of the Augments are similar to card effects we already have. Go have fun and make some wacky combos! Come join us in the LTGM channel on the Fourth Location Discord server and share your Draft experiences! What have been your most satisfying Augment combos?
Special thanks to SnapComplete for the datamined information found in this article! Be sure to check them out for a boatload more Draft info up on their site now!
