The Ultimate Guide to the Grand Arena Economy
Lauren covers your path to Major Victory – and whether the Premium Event Pass is worth it.
Grand Arena's back, and there's a card on the line! You can catch me covering both on the official Marvel Snap YouTube channel. Here, I'll be digging into the economy of the event.
As usual, if you're interested in grabbing strategy tips and advice, don't forget to check out Scott's article.
Scosco
Fourth Location subscribers had early access to this economy guide. It became free when the event was ~48 hours old (+11: Valentines Day, sorry 😅).
Subscriptions make this sustainable. If you enjoy the work Scott and I are doing, and can afford it, I'd really appreciate if you signed up here! Full access to early and exclusive content starts at just $4 a month. Big thanks to our subscribers. 🩵
Event Format
This Grand Arena's economy works just like the last few:
- Dual prize tracks you climb with XP (Free Pass + Premium Pass)
- Shop where you can spend event currency (Glory) and Gold
The Free Pass includes a new card, Major Victory. You can unlock him as soon as you reach 418 XP.
Like January's Sanctum Showdown, this Grand Arena is reducing the the XP needed to move up Pass levels. There are still 26 levels, but they end at 1,150 XP instead of 1,500. That's a massive 23.3% reduction!
Tickets
It'll cost you a Ticket to play a game, but you'll get it back if you win. Winning also grants 10 Glory and 10 XP. You'll get half as much Glory and XP for losing (or tying).
That Ticket refund means your win rate has a strong impact on how much Glory and XP you can squeeze from each Ticket.
Starting Tickets: 6
Tickets Soft Cap: 9 (you cannot regenerate above 9)
Tickets Hard Cap: 99 (you cannot buy or collect Tickets above 99)
Free Pass Tickets: 12
Premium Pass Tickets: 14
Total Free Tickets: 102
Total Premium Tickets: 116
A 50% win rate translates to two games, 15 Glory, and 15 XP per Ticket.
The soft cap on Tickets is something to be careful with! If you want to avoid burning any free Ticket regeneration, you need to get down to five before the next refresh. I strongly advise to never claim any Tickets from the Passes (or Shop) until you're ready to play and out of Tickets.
Passes
The Premium Pass costs 800 Gold and you can buy it at any time during the event. It instantly rewards 460 XP, 2 Tickets, and 1 Refraction Rainbow whenever you purchase it.
The grand prize on the Premium Pass is an event-exclusive Major Victory Variant by Paul Mafayon.
Here's everything you can find on the Passes (note the instant rewards for Premium Pass purchase are included at 0 XP):
Heads-up if you're being careful to only claim Tickets when you need them! Claiming prizes from one Pass will automatically claim the prize from the same level of the other Pass. That also means if you purchase the Premium Pass after claiming Free Pass prizes, it will instantly claim the corresponding Premium prizes from the same levels.
Premium Value
In terms of progress value (how close it gets you to your next card), the Premium Pass is just a little bit higher than other recent Event passes. It comes in at 63.42% value. I'd never recommend a bundle with value that low, but Premium Event Passes are a bit more complicated.
The main difference is that the Premium Pass comes with a bunch of Glory (1,500) and XP (460). That extra Glory represents a great deal on Cosmetics. On top of the exclusive Major Victory Variant, it's enough to buy a new Emote or nearly two Variants from the Shop. That XP represents huge time savings – being enough to snag the most valuable prize (Major Victory) instantly.
This table shows how many Tickets/games you'll need based on whether you bought the Premium Pass, what your goal is, and what your win rate is. As you can see, the Premium Pass saves about 56 games if all you care about is the new card. It saves about 62 if you want to finish the Pass.
Note that you can really see the impact of the reduced XP requirements. You can get 102 Tickets for free – and that's enough to finish the Pass with a 40% win rate.
Event Shop
Here's what your Glory and Gold can buy for you in the Shop. I expect every item in the shop to have different Glory:Gold ratios (this has become the norm) – but the delay of the February patch means there are no data mined Gold values at the time of writing.
When you buy a Portal Pull, you randomly get one of the Portal Pull Variants you don't already have. This time around, they're all below Series 3, so it's likely you already own every card in the Portal Pull (but go for it if you love one of the variants!).
The delayed patch and lack of data mines also means I can't show you what the Ka-Zar Variant or Moondragon Emote look like!
The Collector's Series 4 Pack, Series 3 Pack, and Credits are the most valuable things in the Shop — with a big gap between each of those items. You probably will not be able to buy the Packs if you've already got every card within them.
The bundle for 7 Tickets is the most lucrative way to convert your Gold into Glory (unless your win rate is awful). With a 50% win rate, 7 Tickets are worth 105 Glory (giving a Gold ratio of 0.43 – lower is better). It makes sense for Tickets to be the best deal, as they're the most costly on your time: you'll need to play games to actually turn them into Glory.
This deal is especially good if you need more XP to finish the Pass, as there's a bunch of bonus Glory there (plus some other prizes).
Expected Glory
It's very doable to complete the Free Pass without Gold. At the moment you complete the Free Pass, you'll have 2,650 Glory. If you also have the Premium Pass, you'll have 3,690 instead.
Of course, you can keep playing after you finish the Pass. This table shows how much Glory you can expect to acquire if you use all your Tickets (102 Free/116 premium).
Conclusion
XP requirements are down and value is slightly up. Those are great changes! I like that some catch-up Snap Packs are sticking around to help the new and returning players out. I always appreciate when the Premium Pass gets you to the new card instantly. I will personally be happy to play enough Grand Arena to get Major Victory for free, but I like that players have the option to skip the event for a reasonable price.
I hope that the recent consistency of event economies means that the Premium Pass is a win for both Marvel Snap and its players. It really is a solid deal for players who highly value the cosmetics on offer – or the time savings.
