Welcome to Goonhammer’s Power Up in MCP series – a collection of articles to help players level up from casual to competitive. There are two previous articles in the set that you may also find useful:
So, you’ve built a Marvel Crisis Protocol roster you feel good about. You’ve got a strong set of models that can enact your win condition and the right batch of crises to let your characters shine. However, putting a roster together is only part of the challenge of leveling up your competitive game.
Even the most diligently constructed roster can fail to perform if its pilot can’t select the right squad of characters for a given game. While some players’ rosters will run a few of the same models almost every game and pepper the others to taste, others are toolboxes that have important decisions to make with each slot every time. Regardless of which broad category one’s list falls into, there are a few essential questions players can ask themselves when building squads to set themselves up for success.
How Does the Math Work?
In the very early days of playing a new roster, sometimes it’s best to keep squad construction as simple as possible. It’s hard to present possible combinations of threat level in a generic way like this since every roster is different, but if you’re not completely in-tune with when all of your models shine yet, the “core plus” system can help get you moving in the right direction.
Simply put, this method of squad building asks you to pick your leader and two other characters that you want to play every game, and automatically subtract their threat value from the threat value being played, to only worry about making decisions with the remaining points. This means that instead of considering four or five models, you only have to consider two (or, rarely, three).
For example, you may have a four-threat leader and decide that you want to play your best non-leader four-threat and your best three-threat every game. That’s 11 points, so if you’re playing a 17-point game, you only have to decide between two more three-threats or a four-threat and a two-threat. 18 points means you pick a four-threat and a three-threat. You can even jot these combinations down ahead of time so you know what you need right away and don’t have to fret over breaking down 13+ points of characters every time you play. This may not result in the best squads every game, but it’s a great way to get started thinking about the math at different threat values.
How Do the Crises Affect Roster Construction?
One of the most important factors to consider when building a squad is which of your characters will shine or suffer with the drawn Secure and Extract crises. Part of this is the shape – a D or B shape map promotes mobility and action economy, while a C or the other tighter shapes may mean you’ll want to consider your tankier or killier models over faster ones. It’s not a hard and fast rule, either; it’s possible to play a model like Mysterio on a D, but it requires understanding that he’ll likely be stuck on one point the whole game and can’t rotate without sacrificing a round of Secure scoring.
However, crises aren’t just about shapes – they have bespoke effects, too. Playing Scientific Samples? That Extract gives bonus points for being by Secures, so you’ll want to consider your models with displacement to deny the bonus VP and/or ones with action economy to make sure you score it yourself. Mutant Madman? Your model with high physical defense gets more value. Extract location is another significant factor in selecting your models, but more on that later. There will also be more information on deployment and how different kinds of models can interact with crises in the next Power Up in MCP article.
Tall, Wide, or Standard?
Some rosters have more flexibility in whether they run tall or wide squads (few higher threat models or many lower threat models), and others are more locked in, but it’s an important consideration when possible. If your list plans to score out quickly, you probably want the last activation to displace models or steal Extracts late, so it’s worth trying to be a model wider than your opponent with priority or equal to them without it. Conversely, if murder is plan A, being a model taller makes it easier to daze or KO an unactivated model and still hold onto the first activation in the next round.
Who’s Going to Grab the Extracts?
When building your squad, it’s worth looking at the Extracts on the board and considering which characters you plan to grab them with. If you’re playing something like Montesi without priority, it’s probably not something you need to put too much thought into – your opponent will likely grab the middle one with their first activation, and you’ll only have one by your deployment zone to worry about.
However, with most other Extracts, there’s more to it than that. With priority on an F, do you have a model who can either grab the Extract and survive several hits (or who has a way to back up with superpowers/leaderships/TTCS)? Do you have anyone with the ability to run across the board and dive an opponent’s home F extracts if that’s something you’d like to do? More than shape, do you have models who you actually want having a target on their back by holding extracts throughout the game? It’s an easy trap to fall into to bring too many models who don’t love holding an extract and wind up falling behind as your opponent has a better turn one plan to grab them and more appropriate models to hold onto them with.
Do You Have Enough Proactive Models?
Speaking of easy traps to fall into, perhaps the most dangerous is bringing too many models who can’t proactively turn a game around. It’s super easy to think of situations in which you’re ahead and can defend a lead, but some of the same models who excel there have little to do when the opponent is suddenly up on Extracts and rotating away. It’s not an attrition vs non-attrition thing – models like Miles or Voodoo can help players claw back from a lead with solid mobility and/or Extract steals – but your squad needs “game-changers” that can swing things in your favor.
That isn’t to say that more passive models aren’t valuable, because they absolutely are. Lizard is one of my most-played models, and he does extremely little proactively. I just wouldn’t want an entire squad of Lizards lest I find myself down on points with nothing to do except throw out some four-die attacks. So when you put your four, five, or six models together, ask yourself, “What do I do if I’m losing?” If you can’t answer that by saying “model A and B can do X and Y to help me claw back,” you’re unlikely to find consistent success.
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