Marvel Collect Guide (Digital Cards): Overview and FAQ

What is Marvel Collect?

Marvel Collect is a digital trading card app operated by Topps. Topps produces physical cards, and also manages many digital card trading apps: Bunt, Huddle (may it rest in peace with the recent announcement), Skate, Slam, Star Wars, Walking Dead, and Disney Collect.

If you’re not familiar with any of the Topps trading card apps, they enable a card collecting and trading experience without the space constraints of physical cards. Or, in my case, the requirement to keep them organized. The apps do all of that for you.

Marvel Collect allows you to open packs and collect cards depicting characters from throughout the Marvel universe. Not only can you obtain comic representations, but you can also collect cards from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Want an Alex Ross artwork? Or a Benedict Cumberbatch Dr. Strange? You can find both in the card universe.

How do you purchase packs (currency)?

You purchase packs from within the app using one of two currencies: gold or diamonds. Acquiring diamonds will require you to spend money on the app, but you receive a certain amount of gold every day. The amount of gold you get each day depends on how much time you spend in the app, if you maximize your opportunities with the wheel (see below), and if you complete all of your missions.

What are the different rarities?

Base

The most frequent rarity are base cards. Within the base sets, there are eight different tiers with the first five tiers being quite easy to collect, though tier 5 (black) may take some time to complete. Tier 6 (purples, pinks, and teals so far) come through opening free packs and spinning the wheel. These take more time than the lower base to collect, but you can do it without spending any coins. Tier 7 and 8 are quite a bit more challenging to find, and some put them on the same tier as commons and uncommons.

One of the more common things you may encounter with base sets is people hoarding a specific character. Hoarding is something fun to do, and often people will set specific targets (e.g., 500 of a particular character). This phenomenon grew out of the Star Wars trading app, where eventually Topps started awarding cards to people who had accumulated so many of a specific card.

Common

There are quite a few common sets released, and often they are do not have an assigned card count. That can make them a bit harder to gauge value if you are not intimately familiar with in-app value differences. My basic rule of thumb is that I value any commons that requiring purchasing coin packs as more valuable than the commons available through the wheel or free packs.

Uncommons

Uncommons are one step up from commons, you can find them in packs. Lately, there seem to be more uncommon-based packs than commons-based packs. One thing I notice with uncommons is that it is relatively easy to collect any uncommon you want. Still, it’s unlikely you’ll accumulate lots of duplicates like you will with commons unless you are explicitly hoarding a specific card or card set.

Rares

Now we’re getting into cards that can be somewhat more difficult to collect. For example, rares-based sets are possible to collet with only gold. But it will take a bit of pack luck to net what you need for sets where the award comes after only a week or so. And unless you are going to be spending diamonds or planning for long-term collecting, you should not expect to collect every rare card. Instead, I prefer setting goals to collect all rares of a specific character (for me, it’s Dr. Strange and Emma Frost).

Super Rares

Super Rares are the hardest cards to find in the game. While some are available in gold packs, they have incredibly high odds of opening. For example, a recent set that had super rares in gold packs is the Endgame Anniversary Character Poster set. For these, the odds were 1:75 for a 3,000 gold pack. Or, in other words, you would expect to spend 225,000 gold to acquire a single poster. My experience also tells me other collectors do not value these nearly as much as diamonds-only super rares.

Epics

Epics so far are limited to only VIP awards. The most recent VIP awards cards have had pretty limited card counts:

Character	Card Count
Nick Fury (February VIP)	9
Carnage (March VIP)	14
Dr. Strange (April VIP)	18
Hulkbuster (May VIP)	14

VIP Program

VIP Program: the way Topps entices you to purchase diamonds: spending a certain amount of money earns you a particular tier of VIP rewards. And if you reach a higher tier, you also get all perks from the lower tiers (e.g., if you reach operative tier, you will also receive all perks for the agent tier).

Perk	Agent Tier	Operative Tier	Hero Tier
Coins	100,000 coins	250,000 coins	500,000 coins
VIP Exclusive Card	Awarded	Awarded	Awarded
Agent Variant	Agent Access	Agent Access Gold Operative Access Silver Operative Acces	Agent Access Gold Operative Access Silver Operative Acces Gold Hero Access Silver Hero Access
Diamond Bundles	2 Agent Access Diamond Bundles	2 Operative Access Diamond Bundles	2 Hero Access Diamond Bundles

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Where can I go to discuss Marvel Collect?

Though I hope to eventually build out more content related to Marvel Collect, it’s unlikely this website will become a hub of discussion. Instead, I would suggest one of two places:

Are Marvel Collect digital cards worth anything?

As a digital object, their value is tenuous. Just look at the recent developments with Topps Huddle. That said, some of the cards do have monetary value if you sell on eBay or through other methods. In particular, almost all super rares and epics are worth at least $1. And lots of them are worth noticeably more than that.

It may even be worth checking out other cards as well, especially if you receive an unprompted offer for a specific card. For example, today, I learned an uncommon Wolverine Comic Book Day card has a few sold listings between $1-$1.50.

What does this mean?: A Dictionary

P2P – short for pay to play; used to refer to people (pay-to-players) who pay for diamonds, or the activity itself

F2P – short for free to play; used to refer to people who rely only on coins provided for free

Swap Shop – shorthand used by traders when they are offering to exchange a card from a set for another card from the same set. You will often see these traders asking for a tip, or stating that extra cards will give priority. These can be useful when trying to complete sets. They can also be helpful to operate because some people will contribute additional card(s); this is how I have gradually built my collection.

Crosstrading – swapping cards from one app (e.g., Marvel Collect) for cards on another app (e.g., Disney Collect). This is useful if you primarily collect on one or two apps. It allows you to collect free coins on the other apps and purchase packs, so that you can have cards to trade for cards on the app(s) you play on. Though I have never run into issues, some dishonest people who will not honor trades. Rule of thumb I have always had is to only crosstrade with people who have both a high number of trades and a high rating. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s worked for me.