Should You Farm XP?

I mean, the answer’s probably no, right? Betteridge’s law of headlines would normally say so – but I’m trying something different today. I don’t actually know the answer yet. This has been on my list of things to analyze forever, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Let’s figure it out together!

I admit this probably isn't relevant to many players. I admit it's just curiosity for me, and maybe it can be for you, too. Or maybe you’ve been wondering about squeezing a little more value from the game. Is it worth your time, even if you're a free-to-play min-maxer?

Two questions to answer:

• How much total value is available?
• How long does it take to earn it?

What and Why

Season Pass XP contributes to your Season Pass level. The majority of it comes from daily and weekly missions, but you also get a little bit for playing the game: 10 for each location you’re winning, and 1 for each turn you play.

XP farmers try to earn XP as fast as possible. The game doesn't count XP when you retreat unless it’s Turn 4 or later. So farmers play cards that pump out Power fast and then retreat as soon as Turn 3 ends (when it says “Playing” down in the corner). We’re talking about cards like Yellowjacket, Squirrel Girl, Ebony Maw, and Shanna.

The why is Season Pass Caches. You get one for every level between 51 and 100. Each one gives you Boosters, Credits, Gold, or a Variant.

What’s in a Season Cache?

We need to start with the prize table, and then we can determine the average value.

That makes the average Season Cache worth 5 Boosters, 32.5 Credits, 10 Gold, and 0.05 Variants. We’ll convert those resources into progress value – in other words, how much closer they get you to acquiring your next card. Most players value cosmetics to a degree, but that’s a very subjective measurement.

We can easily convert progress value into cash, too. I’ll be using USD for that.

Variants have a little progress value because they’re primed for the 25-Credit discount you get when upgrading a card from Common (gray border) to Uncommon (green border).

Making it Digestible

I’m interested in seeing that value in a couple other units. Converting to Tokens and Cards will make it even easier to wrap my head around, plus they have the bonus of being locale-agnostic (unlike USD).

And remember you can potentially farm for 50 extra Season Caches, depending on how many you get from your typical play patterns. Season Caches alone could represent ~1,523 Tokens per Season, worth about a quarter of a Series 5 card.

Personally, the amount I play Snap puts me at about Level 65 in four-week Seasons and Level 76 in five-week Seasons. That leaves 94 levels I could farm every three months — worth about 2,863 Tokens.

Super Premium Season Pass

It's worth briefly highlighting that the Super Premium Season Pass comes with 10 Season pass levels. We now know that's worth about about 305 Tokens (if you weren't already hitting Level 91+).

That used to be all the value of the SPSP. Back then, it's value was very poor. Nowadays, it actually has great value because it comes with a new Series 5 card. Well, sometimes anyway. I'm not convinced Dragon of the Moon is worth $10. 😬

Speedrunning XP

As previously mentioned, the strategy for farming XP is to win three lanes as quickly as possible, then retreat as soon as Turn 3 ends.

The retreating math is obvious. Here's the breakdown of XP winnings for a casserole (winning all three locations) based on when you retreat:

Retreat After Turn…

• 1: 0 XP
• 2: 0 XP
• 3: 34 XP
• 4: 35 XP
• 5: 36 XP
• 6 (with Limbo): 37 XP
• 7 (no retreat): 37 XP

34 XP per three turns is clearly the best deal. You might get through a game in 60–90 seconds with a cooperative opponent (it helps that the first three turns tend to be the fastest).

Matchmaking takes time, so the fastest way to farm is probably Conquest (where you can play 5–7 games against a single opponent). Of course, you'll be trapping your opponents into a pretty unfun match even if it ends in a "free" Silver Ticket for them. You'll have players concede as soon as they know what you're doing.

Additionally, 34 XP is just the ideal. Some opponents will steal locations from you, even if your deck has an ultra low curve.

Test Run

Actually trying to farm XP seemed like the best way to test its speed. It's pretty unfun for both you and your opponent, but the reality is that Second Dinner rewards this behavior! Anyway, here's the deck I ran:

Copy deck code

And here are the results of three dips into Proving Grounds, including the time it took to find a match. Time per Game really benefits from an opponent who'll stick around. As long as your opponent doesn't concede early, you can get at least 5 games in – even if they Snap every game.

XP Farming: Bang for Buck

Three rounds of Proving Grounds is not a very big sample size, but we'll use it as a rough estimate.

At 1,000 XP per level, and 22.7 XP per minute, it would take 44 minutes to finish a single level. If things are going slower – say, 12.5 XP per minute – a level will take 80 minutes to earn.

30.46 Tokens for 44–80 minutes of your time seems like really poor value to me. That's $0.35–0.63 per hour.

What About Earlier Season Pass Levels?

Almost any player who's playing the game actively and completing their missions will naturally hit Level 51. That said, there is more value to be earned from the Season Pass below Level 51. The highest-value levels are 45 and 49, which are worth 500 Credits and 500 Gold, respectively.

If you were only one level away, those would be worth $3.75–6.82 or $4.69–8.52 per hour. I'm not going to pretend that rate is excellent, but it's 10.7–13.5x better than farming for Season Caches!

Conclusion

As expected, farming for XP is pretty slow and yields little reward. You probably shouldn't do it, though I understand why some free-to-play players might still think it's worthwhile to squeeze every bit of value from the game. I would encourage any XP farmer to understand how little the value they're chasing is, though! If you were ever on the fence about giving it a go, I hope this dissuades you from spending your time on XP farming!