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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 26, 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 10 or Less Power | 8 | 150 Credits |
| Win with Copycat starting in your Deck | 4 | 300 Collector’s Tokens |
| Win with Baron Zemo starting in your Deck | 4 | 100 Credits |
Decks with Cassandra Nova
Decks with Copycat
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 cards, make sure to check out our latest strategy guides on Copycat and Cassandra Nova as well:
Cassandra Nova Performance
The Maximum Effort season continued this week with two new cards, the first which was available through the new Deadpool’s Diner game mode. For this reason, not everyone will have this card on the week of release. The effect takes one power from each card your opponent has left in their deck when you play the card, which means the earlier she is played, the more cards she impacts.
Decks with Arishem
The first major point is a meta related point. She is extremely good into Arishem decks. It’s not often is a card so improved by a specific match that it is a point worth considering in the evaluation, but this is one of those times. She is simply 19 power on Turn 3 against Arishem, and even potentially bigger in the match up than Darkhawk. What she really does, though, is allow for more decks to have a reasonable answer to the Arishem problem since she only costs three energy. Plus, she is far easier to slot into other decks than Darkhawk is.
Decks with Rockslide
Decks with Black Widow
Decks with Darkhawk
The best package to include her with is the Darkhawk package, though. The reason is simple: you can add more cards to your opponent’s deck and play her for more power throughout the game. This is the synergy that was underrated prior to release, and it is overshadowed by the strength of the card into larger decks. Korg and Rockslide alone mitigate the downside of playing her later, with the added bonus of opponents sometimes drawing Rocks with -1 power. Going forward, if you’re playing Darkhawk in your deck then including Cassandra Nova makes a lot of sense.
Decks with Scorpion
Decks with Ajax
Ajax has a slight synergy because he can punish your opponent for playing the cards out. Combined with Scorpion, you can now attack almost every card your opponent plays without Hazmat. This makes the total power your opponent can put down significantly reduced, and you can benefit from this power with Ajax. The issue remains that these decks can be difficult to pilot, but attacking the hand and the deck helps a lot.
The Verdict
In the current meta, Cassandra Nova is an absolute powerhouse. Outside of Arishem, though, she is a solid card that has a clear home and supporting packages. She is clearly better when played earlier in the game, but the downside can be easily mitigated and she is only truly a terrible play on Turn 6 with no support.
She might be the strongest card you can acquire right now for our current environment. In the long term, I think she will likely be a permanent fixture alongside Darkhawk; she’ll probably remain a relevant part of these decks without being the core build-around card.
Post-Release Score:
Copycat Performance
The second of the new cards was the highly anticipated Copycat. This three energy card has an effect that feels very unique and is potentially playable in lots of different places. This, of course, always brings extra attention to new cards, which resulted in a ton of hype around this card potentially becoming the new meta staple you want to include in all your decks.
Decks with Silver Surfer
She didn’t quite live up to this level, though, which is disappointing, in a way. But that’s not to say the card is not a very strong card! The issue is that she doesn’t quite do enough to feel like she should be in every deck, mainly because she has very little synergies outside of being a 3-Cost card. This resulted in her best home being Silver Surfer where you can get the strong effect and the synergy. Not all Silver Surfer decks need this card, but she fits into many versions cleanly. Fans of 3-Cost cards will definitely want this card.
Decks with Baron Zemo
Decks with Gladiator
She is a very solid 3-drop, she just doesn’t compare to cards like Nocturne when looking at generic value. Nocturne simply interacts with more aspects of the game than Copycat. In theory, Copycat gives you the ability to Snap hard on opponents after you take the strongest card from the bottom of their deck. When thinking about this prior to her release, many (including myself) forgot to recognize some obvious issues with this concept:
- If you’re taking the best card from your opponent, they also don’t have it in hand. Thus, if you Snap, your opponent should just leave for one cube. Nothing has been gained.
- Your chances of taking the best card are lower than getting any other card. This is to say, the odds that Copycat will have a game-winning impact is lower than her chances of being a generic 3-Cost card with an effect.
In short, her impact on Snapping and of the information was inflated; however, the impact of a generic [3/5] card with an effect is still good. The information part of the card is second to the card having a good stat line with an often slightly beneficial effect. This is still below the impact of other generically strong cards like Nocturne, though. Copycat is also significantly worse into Arishem than any of the non-Arishem match ups.
One other slight synergy to consider is combining her with cards like Gladiator and Baron Zemo to mill the opponent while removing the impact of their last card. This way your opponent gets to draw the last card of their deck but it doesn’t do anything.
Decks with Darkhawk
Decks with Rockslide
Which brings me to the final synergy: Korg and Rockslide reshuffling the opponent’s deck. When you draw Copycat, she steals an ability, and then if you force the opponent to shuffle their deck they could draw that card. This would effectively brick yet another card that your opponent could draw. If you’re playing Copycat for generic value, combining her with this package is another strong way to use the card.
The Verdict
On paper, Copycat appeared to be the most powerful card of the season prior to her release, but her actual impact has been much lower than this. She sometimes does enough, but is often just a Vanilla five power card. This has led to the card having the most success in the 3-Cost-focused Silver Surfer deck since it can mitigate her downside—the lack of synergy with other cards. However, she is a card with potential and is, in general, above average. Unlike Cassandra Nova, Copycat is negatively impacted by Arishem, so as time goes on she could very easily improve with less Arishem around.
Copycat is a card that you will likely want at some point, but she doesn’t make a major impact in every game you draw her (especially right now). The downside of running this card is missing out on another card that works with your strategy, so if you’re looking for the best generic 3-drop it is still Nocturne for now. While the score post-release is much lower than expected, Copycat was a good performer and you’re unlikely to be disappointed by owning her in the long run.
Post-Release Score:
Cassandra Nova
SafetyBlade
Cassandra Nova has potentially improved this deck enough that it might be the best deck you can play right now. Not only does it play well into Arishem with all the tools to counter the deck, but, thanks to Cassandra Nova, you can now consistently compete for multiple lanes into any deck. Ravonna Renslayer allows for combinations that include Iron Man and Mystique, and she allows you to play Sage and Cassandra Nova in addition to Mystique on the final turns.
This deck has been a personal favorite of mine in recent weeks, and it uses Cassandra Nova to good effect. Beast is a sneaky way to make her into a huge lane threat of her own while supporting the Ajax plan. The idea is to play Cassandra Nova on Turn 3 and Ajax on Turn 5. When you’re missing Ajax on Turn 5, you want to bounce Cassandra Nova and play her again. If you can play Ajax on Turn 5, you can drop Debrii and Hazmat on Turn 6 to send Ajax to the moon and dodge the counters.
Copycat
SafetyBlade
Silver Surfer is a simple way to play Copycat. Here she is basically just an effect with the 3-Cost tag, which is as valuable as she can get when her effect misses something good.
SafetyBlade
Darkhawk still rules the current meta, so if you’re not yet the owner of Cassandra Nova then Copycat can take her place in many decks as a generic good card. Here she supports the other good cards in this deck by being, well, a good card.
SafetyBlade
This deck is a combination of the Beast synergy for Cassandra Nova and the Darkhawk synergy for Copycat. This lets you bounce key Junk cards and buff both Cassandra Nova and Darkhawk. The low powered support cards can be transformed with Sersi to create threats while still setting up for Demon and Darkhawk on Turn 6.
Baron Zemo
SafetyBlade
Over time Baron Zemo has proven to find most success in decks all in on mill. This one looks to do this whilst having enough of the Junk strategies to combat Arishem.
if you want to double dip, Copycat goes in here for Nico Minoru. Don’t own Nico, many one drops will works like Iceman.
Gwenpool
SafetyBlade
SafetyBlade
SafetyBlade
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!
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