Best Thena Decks to Try on Day 1 and Strategy Guide - Marvel Snap Zone (2024)

Thena is the first Spotlight card for the June 2024 Season, The Celestials’ Finest. It is a 2-Cost, 1-Power card that reads: After each turn, +3 Power if you played (exactly) 2 cards. Today, we will take a deeper look at the new card and, of course, the best decks to try it out in.

Please note: Gladiator on June 4th has been swapped with MODOK on June 18th. The database will be updated after the June 4th patch.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Thena joins Marvel Snap this week as the latest Spotlight card. It can grow in power every turn, but only if you play exactly two cards during your turn. This restriction is interesting because, to get the benefit, you have to limit how much you can play each turn, which is a new concept in Marvel Snap. So where does she fit? Will she bring about a new way to play, or is she just too clunky to be successful?

She only activates when you play exactly two cards, but the wording of the card leads me to believe that she counts herself being played. The theory for her ceiling is:

• Turn 2 – Play her at 1 power
• Turn 3 – Play 2 cards and she goes up to 4 power
• Turn 4 – Play 2 cards and she goes up to 7 power
• Turn 5 – 10 power
• Turn 6 – 12 power

This seems like a lot, but it does ask an awful lot of you; ou have to limit what you play each turn to get that benefit. There are many strategies that can afford a few turns of playing two cards, but maximizing this card will be hard. However, only two activations are required to reach seven power. Two cards that can help you reach those two activations are Angela and Kitty Pryde. They can easily come down on Turn 3 and then be followed by a 3-drop and Kitty Pryde.

This amount of value alone may be worth experimenting with Thena. It shouldn’t be underestimated how much you may have to skew how you play your turns to get the activation, though. Lots of decks may only play one card per turn, but that is actually too little for her ability to trigger. The “exactly” part of this requirement is a real restriction, but the flexibility of playing her into any lane (unlike Angela) may allow her to thrive. The downside, of course, is that she is a worse draw as the game goes on than Angela in most circ*mstances.

While the early activations may be achieved easily, the issues may start to arise as you near the end of the game. This card seems to synergize well with stronger 5-drops that you can play with 1-drops to activate the ability (or 6-drops with Hope Summers), so she potentially lends herself well to mid-range style decks. She could also pair reasonably well with Gilgamesh, a card that is likely to be played alongside 1-drops for maximum value on Turn 6. This will activate the (hopefully already played) Thena as well as produce power, allowing you to challenge multiple lanes by the end of the game.

Shadow King is a really big counter to Thena, especially with what could be a large supporting cast of cards that are also looking to build power. These decks may turn to Luke Cage as a serious consideration in order to mitigate the damage Shadow King can do. This does change which decks may have the most success with her and, therefore, her chances of success. Luke Cage may defend her, but you still need to play Luke Cage. And if you’re not maximizing her power, that might not be a valuable play.

She also has an anti-synergy with some of the other strong cards that have been released recently. Mockingbird and Sasquatch, for example, want you to play much more than two cards per turn. She just doesn’t gain power as easily as you may assume, and the decks she is in have to be built with 1-Cost cards + other cards throughout the curve to make her useful.

Which leads me to the most likely home for her:

We seem to be solidly in the Age of Renslayer, and if Thena is going to have a major impact it will likely be thanks to Ravonna Renslayer. Thena at one energy opens up a lot of options for her, which could be how she finds success. As a 1-Cost, she can be played on Turn 3 with another card and instantly hit four power. Ravonna also enables a Turn 6 play alongside a big card or something like Cannonball. This seems to lean her towards the “Control” style of play where you are deliberate about playing cards for their maximum value. As I mentioned earlier, aiming to have ways of playing a 1-Cost + another card is valuable for Thena, and making both her and other cards like Sage playable alongside other high-impact cards can create above rate value.

The Verdict

Thena‘s ceiling is really high, and she may end up being a decent card in several decks; however, she requires you to consider her impact on every turn once she’s on the board, and she must be played on Turn 2 to reach her ceiling. This could be a bad thing for her universal popularity, but it could potentially allow her to be a difference maker for players who are willing to put in the work.

The effort to make her powerful might be too much for her to be a universally powerful card, but I think she will be a card that fits perfectly in some decks and has a high skill ceiling. I kept the tentative score low because I’m accounting for the fact that she takes a lot more work to play than it may seem, and because the effort may just not be worth it for most decks.

Pre-Release Score:

Ravonna Renslayer

This Professor X and Cannonball deck uses Ravonna Renslayer to reduce the majority of the deck’s cost. This allows more combinations of two cards to be played, which in turn makes Thena a large scaling threat. This allows you to also attack one lane with Angela while simultaneously attacking another lane with Thena. Professor X can then potentially hit any lane and be supported by more scaling in the late game.

Ms. Marvel

This deck is built around reacting to the opponent and using Thena as a way to push power. The plan is to build power through the mid game with two card plays before finishing with Red Hulk or counter cards (whichever is appropriate). Using Hope Summers to get the extra energy is needed to keep the buffs coming, and she makes the required final turn play possible.

Gamora

Taking some different directions from the core package including Kitty Pryde, I came up with this Storm Lockdown deck. This one tries to allow you to play Storm on the Thena lane and then get buffs in the later turns as needed to come over the top of the opponent.

Patriot

This deck looks to use Thena as a scaling threat alongside a Zoo deck that is built around the Season Pass card Gilgamesh. Invisible Woman and Ravonna Renslayer enable lots of different lines here, which allows the deck to output power in many different and flexible ways.

Professor X

This deck aims to test my theory of whether Thena can just be an Angela in any lane, and it leans more into the Doctor Octopus and Magik synergy with Professor X. Here you want to play Thena and activate her wherever it makes sense (i.e. not making worse plays to satisfy the condition), and then aim to lock her lane with Professor X. Then you can win the final lane with either Red Hulk or Cannonball.

Variants

Closing Thoughts

Thena is unlikely to be everyone’s favorite card, as the effort to get her to work does limit how and when you can play her. However, her ceiling is very high, and she may end up being a powerhouse in the right decks. However, working through these decks before her release often left me feeling like she was outclassed by other cards with fewer restrictions.

Good Luck, Have Fun, and Stay Safe!