MARVEL SNAP – What Are Bots?

Quick Guide to Bots

Bots are A.I. players with pre-crafted decks by Second Dinner, and a variety of different kinds of bot exist. While there are bot programs that people can use to play for them (note: this goes against Terms of Service), this article will be focusing on “fake” opponents. Second Dinner has evolved bots to be as “human” as possible, such as in early 2023 when they fixed bots having impossible split combos.

That still begs the question – Why even have bots in the first place? Bots are essential to SNAP as they serve to keep matchmaking times low, while also injecting cubes into the rank system.

Known Information

Not a lot is known about the inner workings of bots; however we do know that bot games do affect MMR, albeit differently than if facing a regular opponent. Bots decks are based off Collection Level (CL) and bot difficulty depends on MMR and rank. There are also different levels of A.I., with some whose sole purpose is to give “free cubes”, while others will try to actually win. Moreover, Bots are programmed to recognize and retreat in circumstances where they have no way to win and if the player snaps late to capitalize on their position. Bots will also usually snap when they’re ahead, or even sometimes on the start of Turn 1.

Bots may also have special abilities, such as being able to see your plays (like a constant Daredevil effect).

In Conquest, a player’s first battle in Proving Grounds, Silver, and Gold will be against a bot. After the first battles, no additional bots will appear in Gold and Infinite Conquest, but they can continue to be found in Proving Grounds and Silver Conquest if you haven’t played in 40+ days, or in extended queue times where no suitable human opponent can be found.

Agatha and Ego

Agatha and Ego are special-case A.I.’s that appear as a card and location, rather than as an opponent. Both A.I.’s play completely randomly, with the one caveat being that Agatha will always play herself if given the chance to.

How to Spot Bots

Bots can be identified with base art avatars of early Series cards, as well as basic names such as Justin, Richard, David, etc. While some bots have more complex names, a majority of them will be basic and simple human names. Bots also do not use emotes in any form. Bots can use both shop variants and base arts for cards as well. They can also be identified by unusual splits/borders, such as one card on base art with the Common border, while another card has the Ink effect and on Infinite border.

Bots cannot use cosmetics from Bundles, Conquest, Season pass, and other limited-time events. They cannot use Spotlight Variant avatar borders and cannot use Infinity Conquest avatar borders. A common misconception is that bots can use the default SHIELD agent avatar, but this is false.

While some bots do try to win, they can often make sub-optimal plays, such as playing cards onto Murderworld and letting them get destroyed, or over-comitting on one location and leaving the others at incredibly minimal power. Bots especially have a hard time with location text and will often make bad plays into them.

Because bot decks are pre-crafted, they can be recognized as well. For example, one bot deck that is commonly used is Mr. Negative, with cards such as Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Devil Dinosaur, and Jane Foster. However, the full bot decks are not known and they can also have variations; one bot could use Mr. Negative with Magik, while the other could use Mr. Negative with Mystique. Bots also only use Series 1-3 Cards and do not have access to any cards released after Daredevil.

Closing Remarks

To get the most cubes as possible out of bots, attempt to throw priority, snap, then find a way to burst power on Turn 6. Playing at early/late times in your region may also increase the chance of encountering bots, because less players may be on and more bots are needed to fill in the gap for matchmaking.

I hope you found this useful. Wishing you luck!

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 8007 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

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