Ajax and Man-Thing Decks & Week 1 Review: Bonus Challenge Guide

During the weekend, there is now one more set of Missions for players to complete: The Bonus Challenge! These involve additional rewards for winning games related to the week’s new card and the Season Pass card. These missions provide extra Collector’s Tokens, Gold and Credits!

You need to win games with the card starting in your deck, and it does not count if the card was generated by cards such as Cable, Loki, and Maria Hill. Each of these reward amounts will vary depending on the difficulty of the mission.

There will be Bonus Challenge Missions available for each new card release to allow players to earn back Collector’s Tokens and subsidize their cost. Players can also expect the rewards to be stabilized at 200 Tokens to help them plan their token budget for the month.

Maximum Effort: Bonus Challenge – July 19, 2024

The distribution for the Bonus Challenge this season appears to be similar to the April 2024 Thunderbolts Season and it has been confirmed by the developers that this month will be backloaded for the final two weeks. This week’s Bonus Challenge Missions are:

Mission	#	Reward
Win a Location with 4 Cards	10	150 Credits
Win with Ajax starting in your Deck	4	200 Collector’s Tokens
Win with Man-Thing starting in your Deck	4	100 Credits

Most players will want to be efficient with these missions, so today we will give you a few different decks that incorporate both cards featured each weekend.

We’ll also give you a short guide on how to get the most out of the decks and finish the missions quickly. First, let’s take a quick look at the new card’s performance this week.

For more information about the new card, make sure to check out our latest strategy guide on Ajax as well:

Best Ajax Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Ajax Performance

The Maximum Effort season continued this week with a new centerpiece of the affliction synergy, Ajax, entering the game. This 5-Cost card gains +1 power for every card afflicted with negative power on the board. This can get very large, but it also requires a five energy investment. Is it big enough to win games of Marvel Snap, or just too awkward to play?

Ajax has a surprising amount of potential supporting cards, but only one is really relevant. Hazmat quickly emerged as the most consistent way of supporting the new card. The reason is rather simple: you can use Hazmat prior to other plays, limiting the impact on your side of the board while debuffing the opponent’s. With the current meta being heavy on cards in all lanes, this can make Hazmat easily worth five power—even with debuffs on your side—before Ajax is played. For example, if your opponent has played Mysterio on Turn 2 and you play Hazmat on Turn 3, you paid two energy for a five power swing across the board. This allows you to limit the impact on your side without playing Luke Cage.

This also synergizes with Debrii and the new Viper to create a small package that has some real potential. The issue here is that the weak link remains Ajax. The energy cost of Ajax limits his combination potential. You often have to play Ajax on Turn 5, and this telegraphs a lot of your power. This issue is compounded by the fact that a lot of the synergy cards in the earlier turns have to be lower power cards. You often struggle to win the second lane with power (even with debuffs) if you don’t get an early clogged lane. This led to a lot of the decks just not playing into this package much and hiding Ajax in decks with Doctor Octopus and Sentry. In practice, to maximize Ajax and make him feel relevant, the only real direction is Hazmat. I will discuss why as we continue.

The Sentry and Annihilus direction works for Ajax, but mainly because the other cards actually put power down onto the board. They can often lock out lanes earlier and make the game awkward for the opponent. The problem here, though, is that playing Ajax is often the wrong play if you’re including these cards. You want to play Annihilus with that five energy instead. Even if you do this along with Hazmat, you can include Sersi instead; she can compete for pure stats with Ajax and doesn’t care about Luke Cage. This means including Ajax is often just including a card that doesn’t work as well with the rest of the proven strategies just to include the card.

Then there’s the self affliction direction. This was a clear way to explore prior to the release, and it can be successful. But it falls like a house of cards in the face of Luke Cage. It is very easy for this direction to be countered, to the point where your deck is just hurting itself with one card. Also, while these cards support Ajax in theory, the better plan to build with them is Luke Cage because he makes them pure upside anyway. And then Ajax is once again often the worse play you can make in the later turns.

The Verdict

Ajax has failed to meet the already low expectations. Still, some potential exists, and I will discuss one deck that has me excited below. But even that deck has the potential to be built without Ajax. The card is just too clunky to be consistent, and that is before even considering how badly Luke Cage hurts the deck. The concern is that the strategy it promotes just doesn’t work consistently with Ajax and you’re better off using other cards to achieve the same outcome.

With the negatives out of the way, it does combine positively with Hazmat. The new Viper from the OTA gives me renewed hope that one of these shells can find a solid place in the meta. Combining Ajax with this small package can allow for some experimentation, but it still probably feels like a lot of work for little payoff.

Post-Release Score:

Ajax

I’m starting off with including the Junk cards with Ajax because it is one way to easily take advantage of Mockingbird to try competing for the second lane. This allows you to play an early Hazmat as well, and you can still reduce Mockingbird‘s cost to one with Mysterio and Debrii. Getting a 1-Cost at least opens up the ability to play two cards on Turn 6 with Ajax.

If you didn’t get Ajax, you can replace him with Sersi.

The other direction to hide Ajax is a Doctor Octopus Control deck, which is well placed in the current meta. This deck looks to play Doctor Octopus on Turn 5, Ajax on Turn 6 into the locked lane, and then Shang-Chi and Sage on Turn 7. It creates plenty of situations that are clear wins, but it requires some risk-taking with your Snaps.

If you didn’t get Ajax, you can replace him with Red Hulk.

Here is the deck that has me hopeful we’ll get something new from Ajax. The goal here is to replay several Junk and value cards using Beast, then finish with Ajax and Demon/Titania. This does really well into Arishem because, while it does play ahead of you, it can often be vulnerable to early clog which allows you to better allocate your points. Sage is very often ten power, and she can be bounced to create stats when you miss on the Debrii into Hazmat combo. You want to play Hazmat early and often because you’re usually behind in the earlier turns. While Ajax might not get as big this way, you can still get ahead with your other cards. This also uses the new Viper really well since you can easily target The Hood for swapping over.

If you didn’t get Ajax, you can replace him and Carnage with Annihilus and Sentry.

Man-Thing

If you’re looking to complete the Man-Thing missions and have a solid deck into Ajax itself, look no further than the relatively stock Ongoing list. This deck plays Luke Cage to give you an advantage into Ajax players, and it has good power output against other decks.

This is another Junk Control list, except this one includes Man-Thing. After testing during the week, I found that the no Man-Thing and Cannonball versions were more consistent; however, for those wanting to do double mission progress, this is the second CTRL deck that worked with Ajax for me this week. The goal is simple: lock out lanes and hit the big things.

Gwenpool

Gwenpool remains one of the more plug-and-play cards in Marvel Snap right now. You’re not really limited in where she can give you value for mission completion (except she doesn’t really work with Ajax), so here are a few of the decks she works best in.

Closing Thoughts

Wins with the new card may seem a tall order some weeks depending what quality of card is released. Hopefully this guide helps you decide first if you want the card prior to the missions coming out, and what you can potentially play to complete the missions quickly!

Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!