What to do with Juggernaut, Horseman of War
Everything I Want to Try with the New Juggernaut Card
The new Juggernaut card is one of the less heralded of this new season. In a world where repeating, doubling, and squeezing synergy out of your cards is paramount, a good rate conditional 2/8 will have a hard time competing. What type of deck does want him? What is Juggernaut’s best home?
Objective: Horseman of War
Juggernaut will grow from a 2/2 to a 2/8 at the end of the turn you get cards of at least 6 different Powers into play (not counting Juggernaut). The upside of Juggernaut is that he has one of the easiest objectives to fulfill of all of the objective cards we've seen so far. And 2/8 is better than the normal rate of Power you get out of 2 Energy. The problem? That's all you're getting. He has no additional synergy hooks except maybe something like Jack Flag. More importantly, he's not repeatable or further scalable. We do have cards like Prodigy and Chameleon, but that would leave us with an even lower rate of Energy/Power. It's 2026 and Snap is all about growing to unreasonable size or using sharp synergies to propel your strategy. Juggernaut does neither. Does that mean he's a dead card? Not exactly. There is precisely one use-case for Jugg and I think it's a niche that will be around for a while:
Decks that play a wide variety of Powers already and can use a little extra Power.
What does this mean? First, you're absolutely never building around Jugg. He's only for decks that are already easily meeting his condition without sacrificing anything to do so. Second, he's not usually for decks that have some big combo they're trying to pull off like Star-Lord or Shou-Lao shenanigans. That mostly leaves more control oriented archetypes and those that interact enough that they're not relying mostly on points in order to win.
It's a set of characteristics that are increasingly rare in Snap decks. Jugg would have been a far better card a year ago. Still, I do think he'll find some immediate homes and occasionally find new homes as they emerge in different meta games.
How do Objectives work?
Objective is a new keyword in Marvel Snap that rewards you for completing a fun little quest. It doesn't matter if your card is in hand, in play, or in your deck – progress towards your Objective will be counted. The Objective only resolves once the card is in play on your board and the timing window is at the end of the turn (though after End of Turn). Each one comes with a little tracker in the bottom right corner and as long as that counter is full, the Objective effect will go off after the turn.
Soft Synergy
I don't think Juggernaut is the kind of card you want to build around, but there are a few cards that make filling his Objective especially easy. Cards with unusual Powers help (negative, zero, big). Scalers help because they can get to unique numbers – think of things like large Ongoings like Dino, Hawk, etc., as well as cards like Nebula or Chamber. Shanna is an especially interesting option – she might give you a bunch of 2s and 3s, but there is a range of potential outputs.
Unusual Costs
Big Ongoings, Scalers, and Spreaders
Archetype Fits
Supergiant
SugiRonan
SugiMercBall
Lockdown
Quake Motto Scam
Lotsa Bodies
Pixie Dump
War Zoo
Oh, hey look! An En Sabah Nur deck! If you're interested in a bunch more deck ideas for the new Season Pass card, come back tomorrow (Tuesday)! They'll also be better decks because they won't include Juggernaut, Horseman of War! ;)
Is He Worth It?
Unless you're already planning to rock with Supergiant all season, probably not. If you're resource rich, though, you're eventually going to find places to play him, so you may as well grab him if you have the Series 5 discount for being collection complete. Juggernaut isn't a great card, but he's going to feel like a great card in certain decks and metas.
