Gwenpool and Hydra Bob 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 12, 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
Play 2 Cost Cards	12	150 Credits
Win with Bob from Hydra starting in your Deck	4	200 Collector’s Tokens
Win with Gwenpool starting in your Deck	8	500 Gold

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 cards’ performance this week.

For more information about the new cards, make sure to check out our latest strategy guides on Gwenpool and Bob from Hydra as well:

Best Gwenpool Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Gwenpool Guide: How to Play, Best Decks, and Synergies

Best Hydra Bob Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Gwenpool Performance

The Maximum Effort season has commenced with the release of a brand new Season Pass Card Gwenpool. She is a hand buff card that adds +2 power to random cards in your hand three times. This can hit the same card, so it can be used to buff several cards at once or just buff one card multiple times (randomly, of course). This card is just pure stats, but were the concerns about being able to play the stats and whether they do enough to win games warranted?

Gwenpool is easily playable card. You can never “waste” a buff, so you’re likely to find some use from the effect each game—regardless of what is in your deck. You may not maximize the use with this approach, but it is an important point to start on. She can slot into a lot of early Collection Level decks well, which makes her an excellent starter card. If you’re early in your journey with Marvel Snap, Gwenpool is likely an excellent addition to your collection.

However, to maximize her effect, she is best paired with the cards that can make the most use of buffs in general. Cards like Brood and Mysterio are excellent cards to hit with Gwenpool because they multiply the effect. Decks can go all in on isolating key cards in their hand, or just include her alongside these cards as a way to “high roll” buffs. Both directions work well, but you also want to try having ways to get as many cards out on Turns 5 and 6 as possible if you’re relying on these buffs.

The primary way to do this is with extra energy and reduced cost cards. Mockingbird is once again the big winner since she synergizes with many of the best cards to buff and reducing in cost. If she is hit by the buff, you’re more likely to be able to play her alongside other cards on the final turns. Silver Surfer in general also supports the same set of cards, and it can be built with Hope Summers or Sera to help get more cards down on the board. This reduces the main barrier to maximizing Gwenpool: playing the buffed cards. It is a real concern for her long term success because it can be awkward at times to get all the power out in the final two turns.

The Verdict

Gwenpool is a great but simple card. She does what she says, and that often provides enough value. This results in a card that is playable at all levels. However, she is actually narrow in application when you look at the hyper-competitive options she has. The set of cards she supports is small, and the requirement to play the cards on the final turns makes her sometimes awkward to play at higher levels.

Which leads me to a split evaluation. The card is easy to recommend; she has simple applications and is not hard to include in decks at all levels. However, if you’re looking to maximize her impact, she is difficult to make consistent and will likely be an easy cut from many of the archetypes she is appearing in now. The combination of the buffs being in your hand and the limited window you have to play them are real problems. Even with this limited application, though, the cards she supports already form a strong deck. So, even as you’re climbing the Ladder, you’re likely to be able to pull out a Gwenpool deck and have some level of success.

Post-Release Score:

Hydra Bob Performance

Bob from Hydra is the first ever card to interact with the Snap mechanic. When you or your opponent Snaps on a turn, Bob will move at the end of that turn. It has some really interesting theoretical applications and tension, but how did it do in practice?

The stats from first week of the season can be extremely misleading, and Bob from Hydra is the latest card to benefit from this phenomenon. Bots and pre-Infinite climbing result in skewed statistics, so if you’re looking to evaluate this card it is more important than usual to assess it in practice.

In theory, Hydra Bob creates tension around the Snap mechanic and whether you or your opponent will Snap to move the card. This tension can be played into with decks that include cards like Kraven because they can get extra buffs. The other direction is ensuring Hydra Bob just cannot move at all, or can only move to a specific location. This makes him just a clear four power card. However, there is a lot of work required for that four power (the same problem occurs with Martyr). In practice, Bob from Hydra is often on the board early on, and your opponent can use this to ensure you lose four power from a location at the end of the game. While you’re working out how to limit the impact of the move, your opponent is given the ability to choose to Snap or not in order to move one of your cards.

Bottom line: this is a risk that is not worth taking in Marvel Snap.

The Verdict

Buyer beware. The last time a card has felt this poor to play was the original Snowguard. It does not even synergize with Professor X like when Martyr was released, as the Snap would make him move out of the lane. It is very easy to feel like Bob from Hydra isn’t a negative since it only costs one energy, but putting a high risk card in your deck you are choosing not to play something with a more impactful effect. If you’re in need of a 1-drop in your deck, you already have plenty of options. If you’re looking to fill every location anyway, Martyr is just the better card because it has five power.

However, if you’re looking for something novel and searching for highlight reel plays, maybe Bob from Hydra will be fun for you. It is definitely different. It is also easy for his negative effect on your deck to be hidden. What was clear throughout the week, though, is that no deck was improved by including this card.

Post-Release Score:

Hydra Bob

Now the owners of this card need to get the quest complete. Well, this first attempt tries to play into Bob’s strengths by including the Kraven package while trying to cover the weaknesses by targeting Arishem players with Darkhawk. The plan here is to use Hope Summers to get as many cards out as possible, and then use Kraven as a way to gain some extra benefits from a Snap on either side.

Captain Marvel can be swapped for Gwenpool if you want to include both new cards.

This second attempt is one where Bob from Hydra is clearly replaceable, but it uses one more synergy that I have not discussed: if Bob reveals at the end of the game, he does not and cannot move. Enter Invisible Woman. While some experimentation has occurred with Supergiant, it is likely better for Bob to synergize with the cheaper option. You can now hide Bob until the end of the game and set up Gilgamesh and/or Ultron for big end-game power.

Gwenpool

The most consistent way is simply playing a solid Silver Surfer deck with Gwenpool. This isn’t flashy or exciting, but it is simple to play and can get the job done. The basic play patterns have not changed with Gwenpool, but you now have another option for Turn 4 that can set you up for a big Turn 5 or Turn 6.

In a similar direction, this deck took the early Ladder by storm. It uses cards like Mysterio and Patriot efficiently, along with Brood to maximize Gwenpool‘s buffs. This deck is excellent for climbing to Infinite, and it’s also a deck that can easily sneak in Darkhawk due to the other Ongoing cards for Mystique to copy. Gwenpool has great targets in this list and it can play well into Arishem, so I believe this deck has a lot of potential this month.

If you want to try something a little different, these next few decks are for you. First up are the Bounce decks I used during my climb to Infinite. This deck was part of my experiment with playing Phastos and Black Swan alongside Gwenpool to make your one drops into real threats. The plan here is to play Phastos on Turn 3, Gwenpool on Turn 4, and then Black Swan plus one of your bounce cards on Turn 5. This fills your hand back up—often with lots of cards that cost zero or one energy—that you can play out on the final turn for a ton of points.

The Darkhawk version is great into Arishem as well since you can usually target one lane and just play Darkhawk on another on Turn 6. The No Darkhawk version can be more fun to play, and it’s really good into the Arishem counters (although it struggles into double Blob).

Finally, one style of deck that has shown up a little is Moon Girl. The issue here is you only have one activator for Mockingbird, but if you can line up the copies here the power output competes with most of the top decks. The plan is to copy She-Hulk or Mockingbird, hit them with Gwenpool, and then reduce their costs. Wasp and Makkari can help reduce your hand size while also being OK targets for Gwenpool, and Rogue is included as tech against Mobius M. Mobius because he is really really bad for this deck.

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!