Kate Bishop & Marvel Boy 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.

Young Avengers: Bonus Challenge – August 9, 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 1-Cost Cards	15	150 Credits
Win with Marvel Boy starting in your Deck	4	200 Collector’s Tokens
Win with Kate Bishop starting in your Deck	8	150 Gold

Most players will want to be efficient with these missions, so today we will give you a few different decks that incorporate all the 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 Kate Bishop and Marvel Boy as well:

Best Kate Bishop Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Best Marvel Boy Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide

Kate Bishop Performance

The Young Avengers season kicks off with Kate Bishop. This 2 energy, 3 power card puts two arrows into your hand. These arrows are unique 1-Cost cards with varying effects. The utility seemed high, but is paying for the card and the arrows just too high of a cost to make an impact?

Kate Bishop is basically a Vanilla [2/3]; the value comes exclusively from the arrows. The arrows themselves were interesting to experiment with because they can have an impact in almost any deck, but in practice the best ones were the Acid Arrow and the Grapple Arrow. The Acid Arrow takes up a location spot for your opponent as well as giving them -2 power. This seems to be the best “stats” available for the one energy cards. The Grapple Arrow has base three power and the effect can be useful when used correctly—even without Move cards. The base three power is the most valuable part, though, as you don’t need to fill the location or play it a turn prior. The issue for Kate Bishop is that you’re just as likely to get the Pymparticle Arrow and the Basic Arrow, and these two arrows lean her toward certain styles of play.

The Pymparticle Arrow and the Basic Arrow are really strong in decks that can bounce them and decks that can consistently activate the effects. When activated, both cards are worth four power. However, not every deck can activate them. So even though you can still play them for some value in any deck, to maximize the new Season Pass card you want to be able to consistently use all the arrows. Decks with Blue Marvel and Ka-Zar tend to have the most success with this because they can meet the conditions of these two arrows with their normal plan, and they can still use the Acid Arrow and Grapple Arrow for extra value. Beast and other bounce effects also tend to synergize with these two because you can make them free to play. This direction is slightly harder to play due to the hand size concerns, but it is still very effective.

The Verdict

Kate Bishop is a new contender for “best generic 2-drop to include in your deck.” The arrows are strong and can easily be slotted into your turns. However, to get the maximum value from her and truly feel like she is winning you games, she is only a powerhouse with Zoo and Bounce decks. Her ability can be useful in a wide variety of decks though, which impacts her perceived performance. Similar to Jeff and White Widow, she may show up in lists where she isn’t necessary but is just the best option for the time. If you’re into Bounce and Zoo, Kate is likely to end up in the best versions of these decks very quickly.

Post-Release Score:

Marvel Boy Performance

Marvel Boy is a 3 energy, 2 power card with one of the strongest abilities in the game: scaling. However, he is limited to three other 1-drops on the board. This means that they have to be on the board at the end of each turn in order to receive the buffs. So, is the restriction to other cards and the low-statted body enough of a balancer for Marvel Boy?

The ability is reliant on three cards being on board as quickly as possible. This leans heavily into cards that are able to be played on Turns 1 and 2 that meet the three card requirement quickly, like Squirrel Girl. She is the main card that works with Marvel Boy, but cards like Nightcrawler, Hydra Bob, and Nico Minoru (which are often good enough tempo plays) are also great teammates for Marvel Boy. So whats the catch? Play 1-drops, have them scale out of control, and profit? Why wouldn’t every deck play this?

The limiting factor for Marvel Boy is not the card itself or the effect: its the requirements that surround playing such a high density of 1-drops to make him valuable. Squirrel Girl alone can have value with cards like Mockingbird, but without these supporting cards she can often feel like a low tempo card that fills your board with weak Squirrels. Marvel Boy doesn’t just require you to play a few 1-drops and profit, he requires lots of 1-drops, which then requires very narrow strategies such as Zoo to be successful.

.Then comes the counter vs counter debate. Killmonger into a board that invested heavily in Marvel Boy is devastating. Caiera can negate this risk, but she pushes you even further down the “only Zoo” path. Flexibility for Marvel Boy may come from pairing him in a package with Loki to ensure you’re not locked into one strategy.

The Verdict

Marvel Boy is pure power in Zoo decks. It is hard to imagine playing Squirrel Girl without Marvel Boy and therefore playing Zoo decks without Marvel Boy going forward. The limitation is that outside of this application, Marvel Boy doesn’t consistently reach enough power to be worth the investment—which isn’t just three energy, it’s also including lots of 1-Cost cards. It’s a strong card where it is played, but I think the long term potential is firmly linked to the supporting cards.

Post-Release Score:

Kate Bishop

First up, the deck that most naturally fits both Kate Bishop and Marvel Boy. This style of deck could already output impressive power, and Kate adds some extra flexibility while Marvel Boy adds extra power. The deck can now compete more consistently than before, and I highly recommend it for this weekend.

Plenty of different Bounce decks found success (many of which revolved around either Sage, Sasquatch, or Ajax), but one way that may work for lower collection levels this weekend is Darkhawk Bounce. This will allow you to replay Korg multiple times to beef up both Darkhawk and Cassandra Nova. Black Swan allows you to play your 1-drops alongside Darkhawk on the final turn as an alternative to Hit Monkey.

Marvel Boy

Marvel Boy is more limited in application, but you can try to include him in a smaller package of 1-drops alongside some tech cards. This is supported by Loki, which allow you to play extra cheap cards on the final turns that support your early scaling on the 1-drops. Also, Mockingbird is supported by Squirrel Girl as well as the Loki cards.

You can also try to lock out your opponents on Turn 5 with Sandman. Here you have an aggressive early game that curves into Marvel Boy before playing Sandman into Ultron as the finisher. Although the main game plan is Ultron, the aggressive early game synergizes well with the rest of the list and you can win games without drawing Ultron.

Closing Thoughts

Wins with the new cards 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!