Character Card

Omega Red; or Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich (I bet you didn’t know that alias before looking at the card) is a much-maligned character in Marvel Crisis Protocol. But I’m here to tell you…he’s not half bad!

Let’s start with the part of the card that catches the most amount of hate from players. His speed.

Omega Red only moving S on a medium base makes him the same speed as Kingpin – and you don’t often see Kingpin running around the board causing havoc. So yes, that is rough for Omega Red here, I won’t deny that. But let’s move onto the good parts of his kit!

When people bring up Omega Red, they tend to start by talking about Death Factor and Death Spores. This is the backbone of his kit and tends to be the only reason he comes up in conversation most of the time. Poison isn’t the most effective status condition, especially if you can’t get it out until Round 2 or 3 – and Omega Red struggles to get it out quickly if your opponent knows how to play around it.

But when you do start getting those poisons out, his Death Factor ability is…fine. It’s okay. Two guaranteed damage is fantastic as it ignores most of your opponents’ defensive capabilities (take that Shang Chi) – but this also hurts Omega Red, which can be rough.

Not being able to easily give out Poison during his activation is Omega Red’s real weakness. You need to rely on your opponent stepping into his aura in order to get his cool tricks online, which can also be rough. But we’ll get back to the Poison half of his kit a bit later, as I’m aware that this is likely the reason you’ve clicked on this article!

Carbonadium Armour is great. Coupled with 6 health on both sides as well as the odd Drain Life trigger on Carbonadium Coils makes Omega Red very tanky.

But the real strength of Omega Red comes in the form of Ensnare. This ability is awesome; 2 power is nothing, range 4 is enormous, and pushing an enemy character towards you M is nothing short of incredible, especially if it then lets you get 2x Carbonadium Coils off, increasing the odds of healing some damage with the Drain Life trigger. It also has the coveted trigger of “A character can be pushed by this superpower only once per turn,” meaning you can keep pulling enemy characters providing you have the power – and it only costs 2!

My argument here is that we’ve spent too long relegating Omega Red to the “He gives out poison and hurts himself right?” bin – while he deserves some “He’s pretty tanky and can displace a ton of characters” love! 

He seems like a great candidate for a dude who grabs an Extract Round 1 – and sits on a back point for the rest of the game, with a healthy amount of “Come near me and you activate my poison trap card” with a dose of fantastic displacement.

Affiliations

Omega Red is affiliated to both Cabal & Criminal Syndicate. I feel like these affiliations have been talked to death across all MCP media, so I’m not going to go into much detail here. Fellow slowpoke Kingpin probably loves him, as he is a tanky model that can lock down a secure, hold onto an extract and not die easily – and also displace a large number of models. But now let’s get onto the lesser known affiliations for Omega Red!

Let’s be honest, Winter Guard is an affiliation we often forget exists. But Omega Red is affiliated! Main thing worth mentioning here is that Omega Red hates being displaced because of how slow he is. The Winter Guard leadership can help him stay on a point, which as we’ve mentioned – is what we like him for!

Hellfire Club recently got given an affiliation list – and guess who’s name made the guestlist! Good old Arkady (aka Omega Red, I know you’ve already forgotten his alias) is now part of the exclusive Hellfire Club – and having played a few games with him alongside Emma, I’ve grown to realise he’s basically made for them!

Back when Hellfire could take any character in the game and treat them as affiliated, Emma was on the lookout for a few very specific skills;

• Damage reduction – check
• Displacement – check
• Ways to spend tons of power – check

The Hellfire leadership grants Omega Red with some much needed bonus power and healing. He absolutely shines in this affiliation. Give him an Extract Round 1, stand him on a Secure and dare your opponent to deal with him. If they do anything other than Daze or KO him, Emma’s leadership will both heal and power him up – ready for some huge turns, while still holding onto that Extract. He’s great here, welcome home Arkady!

Hydra – or more specifically Baron Strucker – love to play with Status Conditions. They are rewarded with healing once per turn when they give an enemy a status condition. Omega Red can dish out poisons on the enemy’s turn – and get some much needed healing from it! Pretty great.

He also now has a new buddy to play alongside her: Abomination. Another character that has a poison mini-game as part of their kit, hopefully helping to bring Death Factor into relevancy more often.

Another poison buddy in the form of Warlock is also worth consideration! Warlock has similar poison tricks with Omega Red – with a similar problem, he struggles to dish out Poisons as much as he would like. With the two of them on the table, it increases their chances of being able to play that part of their game plan. Once your enemy is poisoned, you can really start to rack up the guaranteed damage taken from Death Factor & Transmode Virus Infection. 

The New Mutants leadership also helps give Omega Red some much needed extra movement – while also surprising your opponent with an Omega Red now in range to give them poison if they’ve used their last action to attack you!

Tactics Cards

This card is…good? A bit of healing on Omega Red is fantastic, considering how tanky he is. But getting more than 1 status condition for this card to have great effect feels a bit niche. Vs an Apocalypse roster, Hydra…or any other affiliation that is likely to spit out Status Conditions, absolutely. But that won’t be every game – so I think you take this in your 10 if Omega Red is key to your gameplan, while only taking it in your 5 if you’re against those specific teams.

Final Thoughts

I think that Omega Red is suffering from bad press. While his S move is lacking – and the poison half of his kit isn’t very relevant most games, he makes up for that by being very durable and having some of the best displacement in the game.

I think he deserves to be played more than he is – and while he is certainly situational, when you get him in the position he wants to be in, he really shines. Especially in one of his new homes – Hellfire Club. 

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