Welcome to Goonhammer’s MCP Learning From Legends series. In these pieces, we interview top-tier MCP players to find out what they’re playing and how to get the most out of their affiliation of choice. You can read our other articles in the series by clicking the links below:
For our debut article, I’ve got Jeremy to talk about the Midnight Sons. Jeremy has a long history of success across several affiliations in Marvel Crisis Protocol, but he’s currently the top-rated Sons player in the world on the Longshanks leaderboard.
Whether you’re a newer player getting into the game or a seasoned competitor interested in learning more about Midnight Sons, here’s the scoop on the affiliation that goes bump in the night.
Let’s start broad: what’s the elevator pitch for playing Midnight Sons? Why should people consider trying them out, and what’s earned them so much of your time?
Honestly, the characters are what drew me to the affiliation at first – Blade, Ghost Rider, and Iron Fist being three of my favorites. What kept me there was the strength of the affiliated tactics cards (mainly Siege of Darkness) and the play patterns that Blade’s leadership can open up. If you like increased mobility with a good amount of punch, then Midnight Sons might be your jam.
Midnight Sons didn’t exist when I started playing MCP, but Strange and Ghost Rider were two of the first characters I bought because they’re so darned cool. So I definitely get the appeal of the roster. From a competitive standpoint, though, how do you think Midnight Sons are positioned in the current meta? Is that different than where you think they were sitting before both sets of character updates and the crisis rotation earlier this year?
I think that currently they’re a little rough into some of the top stuff. Mainly Inhumans. Black Bolt kind of terrifies a lot of what I believe are Sons’ best pieces right now, and I think that they can also play the scoring game faster than Sons. Outside of that matchup, I think Sons can compete fairly well with most stuff right now and wouldn’t be surprised to see them taking down events.
Let’s get into your specific list. What are you playing right now?
CHARACTERS
The Immortal Hulk (7)
Doctor Strange (5)
Red Skull, Master of Hydra (5)
Blade (4)
Doctor Voodoo (4)
Man-Thing (3)
N‘Kantu, the Living Mummy (3)
Iron Fist (3)
Baron Zemo (3)
Bob, Agent of Hydra (2)
TEAM TACTICS CARDS
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Bats the Ghost Hound
Siege of Darkness
One Below All
I Am A Baron, After All
Cosmic Obliteration
Heroes for Hire
Grievous Wounds
Recalibration Matrix
SECURES
Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends on Earth
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0
Infinity Formula Goes Missing!
EXTRACTS
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weapons
Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators!
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Let’s start on a macro level – what is your list’s ideal win condition? Is that consistent, or does your approach flex much with different crisis setups and opponents?
My preferred style of play with this list is trying to outscore my opponents. Attrition is something that will happen along the way, but it’s really trying to leverage the survivability of a lot of pieces and bump in order to get a points advantage early and make it very difficult for your opponent to flip that situation.
I’m often picking up extracts with models like N’Kantu and Man Thing early on, expecting them to survive and heal up whatever effort that my opponent has expended into them. When attrition calls, though, Immortal Hulk is obviously the best option for when you’re put in a slow-scoring situation where you’re gonna need a good amount of punch.
Blade is a model that elicits strong opinions from people. Some think he’s an under-performing anchor, others think he’s perfectly middle of the road, and a few consider him actively strong. Regardless, he’s clearly a piece that requires some finesse. What’s your general play-pattern with Blade, and how do you get the most out of him?
Blade is a great model. He’s incredible in 1v1 situations, especially if the opposing model only has access to physical/mystic attacks. He often punches up, and once he has enough power to use his spender on bleeding targets, he can be a huge threat.
His obvious weakness is against energy, but it’s an overblown weakness as long as you’re not pitting him against an entire Guardians gunline or larger models like a Cosmic Ghost Tider, Dormammu, or Apocalypse. Knowing that, if those apex predators are around, then I’m going to play extremely cagey with Blade. Otherwise, I’m going to let him go in and start getting bleeds out, relying on his defensive tech/healing to enable him to win fights.
Besides Blade, who is your only leader here, does your list have a “core” of models that are hitting the table every game? If so, what makes them so consistent with or central to your gameplay? When do the less commonly played affiliated models come out?
The only models here that aren’t hitting the table super often are Bob, Doctor Strange, and, somewhat surprisingly, Doctor Voodoo. Bob and Strange are generally coming out only at 19+ threat games – Bob often on pay to flips for that mobile final activation (Hydra Tactics) for multiple flip opportunities, and Strange on a tight map like M’Kraan or Deadly Meteors where his entire kit can be utilized fairly consistently. Doctor Voodoo is used more on a case-by-case basis – often in situations where I’m losing priority and I want to try to gain some power for a first- or second-round steal.
I prefer to go as wide as possible with this list, using models that are survivable and punish opponents for interacting with them if they fail to finish the job. By that I mean if an opponent starts attacking an N’Kantu or Man Thing but doesn’t get them dazed, then those models can often heal back most or all of the damage afterward. Blade can work in a similar fashion, though his healing is tied to being up close to bleeding enemies. This strategy is strengthened further on a crisis like Riots.
After his initial release, Immortal Hulk seemed to struggle to find a consistent home in Midnight Sons. He was certainly getting played, but it wasn’t uncommon to see lists leaving him out. However, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a Sons list without Bruce in the 10. What do you think changed? Were people just wrong before, or have some of his natural predators been toned down?
I do think that people are just wrong to not include him in the 10. Even if you don’t intend to play him, having him in the 10 as a threat to hit the table is always a good thing to keep your opponent honest during squad building. If they at least have to account for the potential to deal with a Hulk, then he’s influencing the game even if he’s not on the table.
When does Immortal Hulk actually see the table for you? You’ve spoken a little bit above about when Strange comes out, but with three models at or above five threat, what’s the decision tree for squad building with them? Are you ever playing more than one at a time?
Immortal Hulk is hitting the table most often for me at lower threats and on midline secures. So you’ll often see him on things like Mayor Fisk/Intrusions/Deadly Meteors. The 16 threat of Blade/Red Skull/Immortal Hulk is very oppressive and difficult for a lot of opponents to deal with. In regard to the five threats coming out together, I do like them together at 19 threat+, especially on something like M’Kraan. That shape is great for Strange to sit on a point and be a turret while providing support, and then having the grunts along for free point flips is very helpful.
Bump is an interesting leadership because it’s one that every model in the game gets significantly better with. However, the three splashes that you’re playing are 5-threat Red Skull, Baron Zemo, and Bob. Could you explain what makes them work so well in your list? Are there any other splash pieces that you like but didn’t quite make the cut here?
Utilizing bump, Red Skull becomes a safe extract grab with priority due to the fact that he can damage himself and gain more power (he can bump, walk, grab an extract, then walk back). Baron Zemo is the same if he uses his tactics card right away (I Am A Baron can give him one extra power round 1). That gives this list three safe grabs (if you count Immortal Hulk, though I wouldn’t really ever recommend that) and one semi-safe grab in Iron Fist since he generates two power a round to move, move, grab, bump back.
Another aspect that should be mentioned about Red Skull is that his grunts are incredibly powerful. They contest secures, which, aside from just being generally good, allows you to go taller than most teams can in some situations while focusing on attrition and having an extra body for scoring. This lets you maintain priority while killing opposing models and not fall too far behind on points. This is a large part of the reason that the 16 threat of Blade/Immortal Hulk/Red Skull is so strong.
As far as other splashes go, there are notable pieces that become safe extract grabs in Midnight Sons. Beta Ray Bill and Hela are often seen, and while I’ve used Bill in the past, he does feel a bit underwhelming in round 2 because safe grabbing hits his power economy a bit hard. With regard to Hela, I just think she’s an all-around underwhelming model.
I think a lot of newer Midnight Sons players see Immortal Hulk and a few other Sons models that hit hard and want to play them on bunched-up Crises. You’ve obviously gone a different way here, which seems to be common among successful Sons players, playing both D secures and a B. Can you explain why that first reaction to want to brawl isn’t the way to go? What makes Sons so good on wider secures?
I personally don’t love relying on dice to win a game for me in a faction that doesn’t have any real in-house dice fixing mechanics (outside of your one-time use of Bats the Ghost Hound). Anyone who has played a number of games with Sons where they’re relying on punching knows that Immortal Hulk has games where he just refuses to roll good attack dice and/or fails to roll wilds very often.
Punching is a fine game plan sometimes, but I think to achieve a high win rate and consistency with the faction, it can’t be your plan all the time. That being said, what you can consistently do is leverage your leadership to achieve better mobility than most other teams. For example, an N’Kantu that double walks to a D secure and stays on the inside toward your home D (let’s say an Extremis console on Riots) on round 1 and picks up an objective is fairly likely to survive, assuming you haven’t deployed him across from an energy gunline or something like that. In round 2, despite being a small base with a medium move, he can attack a model that your opponent put there and try to push/hex them, and then he can bump and walk back to your home D, likely healing on the consoles or with souls while doing all of that.
Without bump, a small base medium mover would have to double walk to get back to the home D point. So he’s effectively getting an extra attack action (or think of it like Hit and Run) when played like this in Sons. This extra mobility/action economy can have a hugely impactful effect over the course of an entire game across all your models.
You just touched on one part of this, but Bump in the Night enables some unique round 1 opportunities not available to other affiliations. While it’s hard to generalize with how wildly games of MCP differ, are there any specific plays you look for in round 1, either enabled by the leadership or not?
The really cool thing about the round 1 bumps is that they can be used both defensively and offensively, depending on the situation. I’ve already mentioned multiple characters having the ability to do a safe extract grab with it. If you’re running two of those characters at once (i.e., Red Skull and Zemo), then you can get a safe grab even without having priority, which most rosters cannot do for less than 10 threat investment.
On the flip side, a character like Doctor Voodoo can deploy across from a midline objective that you expect your opponent to pick up, and then he can walk and bump to be on the objective in one action, freeing up his second action to attack that model to fish for power to possibly possess them and make them drop it immediately. Similarly, Red Skull can punish the midline very effectively with a walk/bump, guaranteeing that he will be able to contest a midline secure while attacking rather than having to hope for a blitz trigger on his attack.
Lastly, Bump enables hyper-aggression with Immortal Hulk onto a midline secure. If you’re willing to use his tactics card One Below All, you can spend two power for that, along with one power for a Bump, to hit the midline and make two attacks into an opposing model. This is usually something you’re looking to do when the game plan is to punch things to win.
Considering other strong affiliations in the game, which do Midnight Sons feel best positioned into? Conversely, are there any matchups that seem particularly challenging? How do you approach the more challenging ones?
I feel like Midnight Sons have a pretty solid matchup against Web Warriors, who are always strong in the meta. The mobility from bump helps to chase them down when necessary, and the high volume of affiliated mystic attacks is great for getting through their defenses.
I’ve already touched on Inhumans being challenging for Sons at the moment, but I also feel like Apocalypse and Avengers can be somewhat difficult to deal with as well. When going up against Apocalypse, I’m bringing Grievous Wounds for a situation where I actually have to deal with the big man himself. That’s because several of the models in the list (especially Blade) are horrible at taking down Apocalypse, as their attacks give mandatory conditions that heal him. As far as Avengers go, I think a lot of that matchup depends on who gets the most out of their Hulk, and that can be an uphill battle considering OG Hulk is just more efficient than Immortal Hulk early in a match (especially under OG Steve).
AMG hasn’t announced any upcoming models that seem likely to be in Midnight Sons, so are there any Marvel characters you’d like to see added to the affiliation?
My dream Midnight Sons model would be a new Moon Knight with a more consistent kit and possibly a Midnight Mission leadership. Bundle him with Hunter’s Moon and 8 Ball since we’ve already got Tigra coming. Outside of that, I’d like to see Morbius at some point, too.
If people want to talk with you more about Midnight Sons, can they do that? Do you have a Discord handle and any MCP servers you commonly hang out in? Do you have any podcasts or streaming accounts to promote?
Absolutely. I’m always down to talk shop on lists and ideas. My Discord is nobilibang, and you’ll see me in the MCP fanserver occasionally and a few other places. I do also stream MCP games fairly regularly on Twitch, and I post the VODs along with other content sometimes on my YouTube channel.
Click Here for Nobilibang on Twitch
Click Here for NobilityMCP on YouTube
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