Marvel Snap, the next streamlined, snackable card game from some of Hearthstone's creators, today added perhaps its most requested feature: a competitive mode that allows players to play against friends and choose opponents. Previously, Snap paired players based on ranking and skill, with no way to play with a buddy. [Second Dinner's Ben Brode (opens in new tab) adds, "Here we gooooo," and Principal Designer Glenn Jones says "about the update":

"The new patch includes balance changes, but sur The new patch includes balance changes, but not for Surfer and Zab," Jones said (opens in new tab). 'After we locked in the changes a few weeks ago, they started to overperform. Fortunately, we now have the ability to adjust the balance without a new patch and will be adjusting these cards in a week or so."

In other words, not only does Snap finally have the mode people have been hoping for, but now developers will be able to live adjust card properties as needed. It will be interesting to get into this issue, as the perception of a card's power is often different than what the stats indicate, but if Second Dinner doesn't make any changes to Killmonger, it will be something else for people to get upset about.

Battle mode works differently than normal play. Players share a battle code and pair up to play against each other multiple times with the same deck: each player starts with 10 health, and after each game, the winner deals damage to the loser. Matches continue until one player's health is reduced to zero, and according to Second Dinner, more features will be added to this mode in the coming months.

Marvel Snap has been on a bit of a journey since its beta launch last summer: the last major update before this one added artist credits to the game's card art (opens in new tab). The general feeling of the game is one of super speedy, fun card battles combined with a super slow, last-minute progression system (opens in new tab). But being able to sort through your own personal Marvel team-up in battle mode is something I felt the game needed from the start, and I'm looking forward to showing off my absolutely filthy Spider-Man villain deck to all my friends.