Yesterday (Sunday 20th February 2022) my local store - Pro Tech Games in Stockton on Tees held it's first ever MCP Tournament. The tournament was a 16 player swiss style tournament and each player would play 4 games. Unfortunately we had 15 people turn up to the event - so that meant some players would be receiving byes.
I'd been thinking a lot about how I was going to write this article - I've read many tournament reviews on other blogs that go into a lot of detail about each game. This posed a bit of a challenge for me as it was hard to focus fully on my games whilst also taking notes at the same time as the game was happening. Instead I decided to give my games my full attention and then take notes at the end - so this post will just really give a brief overview and summary of each game.
The Roster
[Characters]
- Black Cat: 3
- Gambit: 3
- Juggernaut: 5
- Lizard: 3
- Magneto: 6
- Mystique: 3
- Quicksilver: 3
- Rogue: 4
- Scarlet Witch: 5
- Toad: 2
[Team Tactics]
- Advanced R&D
- Asteroid M
- Can I Borrow That?
- Climbing Gear
- Deception
- Do You Know Who I Am?
- Magnetic Refraction
- Mission Objective
- No More Mutants
- Patch Up
[Extract Crises]
- Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? [C]: 19
- Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan [F]: 17
- Struggle for the Cube Continues [F]: 17
[Secure Crises]
- Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
- Mutant Madman Turns City Center Into Lethal Amusement Park [B]: 18
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
Game 1 - Jack - Avengers
For my first ever tournament game I got paired against Jack - who had Avengers, A Force and X Force in his list. We roll off and Jack wins priority and he selects extracts which leaves me on secures. Research Station and Riots are drawn and I select 17 threat. This isn't really the ideal start for me.
Jack's Squad: Hulkbuster, Wolverine, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow
My Squad: Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Rogue and Toad
I'm a Mystique lover typically - but I don't really have a game plan with her on Research Station. Whenever I've played Research Station in the past, the player who secures the researcher in both rounds 1 and 2 and moves it towards the home base has typically gone on to win - as it's incredibly difficult for your opponent to recover. My plan here is to be aggressive early and try an score the researcher in the first two turns and to just ignore Hulkbuster as much as possible to not feed him any more power than is necessary.
This was an extremely close game. I manage to secure the researcher in the first 3 rounds despite my Rogue being KO'd early in turn 2, however Jack went ahead by a bit of a margin as he chose to focus on the secures rather than researcher - this also kept him in the game as I was securing the researcher at the base. I think ultimately it cost him the game in his final plays when he chose not to move Hulkbuster to the Researcher and instead contest a secure. Had he got that additional VP and forced another round - I don't think I come away with victory here.
I win this game. Just. Brotherhood 14-13 Avengers
Game 2 - Anth - Guardians
The face of anguish when this round got drawn... Anth was one of the very first people I rolled dice with when I first got into MCP and is someone I'd genuinely now call a friend. We play a lot of MCP together both on TTS and at the shop every week, so he knows a lot about the way I play and vice versa. I'd say Anth has had the edge over our many games but recently I've had some success against him. Anth is relatively new to the updated Guardians - he's played them a couple of times against me casually and it's always been a really tough match up for me - so this was one I knew I probably needed some luck over the course of the game.
I win priority - I know Anth is running a near identical crisis selection to me so in some ways my selection didn't matter here. I select secures and Anth is on extracts. Hammers and Infinity Formula are drawn - Anth selects 17 threat. I'm comfortable with both of these crisis selections - but I know Anth is too.
Anth's Squad: Star Lord, Gamora, Rocket, Groot, Ghost Rider
My Squad: Mystique, Juggernaut, Lizard, Black Cat, Gambit
As predicted this was an extremely tough match up and that ultimately gets reflected in the scoreline here. I make a couple of early mistakes which didn't help - I put Juggernaut down early on the flank which then allows Anth to put Rocket and Groot down opposite - for anybody not aware Rocket is an absolute pain against Juggernaut with his long range energy attacks. Anth has had success with this before against my Juggernaut so I should have switched on to this and put Juggernaut down towards the end of deployment.
The game doesn't start off too badly and I go down 4-3 in the first turn. Anth makes an aggressive play with Gamora to contest one of my home secures. This threw me off a little and honestly is where my game started to go seriously wrong. Anth makes light work of Lizard (with yet more energy attacks) and by turn 3 he's KO'd and both Juggernaut and Gambit are also KO'd this turn. I'm 14-7 down by the end of this turn and with two of my key pieces gone - the game is all but over for me by the start of round 4. I manage to gain a final VP when Black Cat steals a hammer from Groot, but with only Mystique and Black Cat left on the table, the game is well and truly over for me.
I lose this one heavily. Brotherhood 8-21 Guardians
Game 3 - Will - Midnight Sons
After a short lunch break it's back into another game and this time I'm drawn with Will and his Midnight Sons.
We roll off and I win priority - looking at a Will's crisis selection there's two of his extracts that really suit me but I don't like the look of any of his secures - so the obvious choice here is to go with secures and hope the one extract I don't want doesn't come out. I draw my secure and it's Infinity Formula, Will draws his extract - and it's Skrulls - his one extract I didnt want to see come out of that draw. My Mystique list really struggles with slow scoring extracts like Skrulls - the list is best used to get a big score early on and then dart around the board to grind out the rest of the game. Skrulls is the exact opposite of this. I was in two minds how to play this, whether I just run Magneto as the slow scoring extract really suited him, or whether to run Mystique, control the secures and hope I pick up the Skrull first.
Will's Squad: Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, Blade, Wong, Iron Fist
My Squad: Mystique, Juggernaut, Gambit, Lizard, Quicksilver
So this game started out as one of those typical Skrull games, I think between us we rolled on the Skrull 6 or 7 times with no success. Will finally finds the Skrull with the last activation on turn 2 - which is unfortunate as I'd already fully activated so could do absolutely nothing to try and get this back. QS is just out of range of Blade who picked up the Skrull so he needs to move first before making the attack. Will then makes an amazing play with Heroes For Hire, forcing Quicksilver to attack Iron Fist instead. I managed to get the Skrull in turn 4 when my Gambit dazed his Blade but unfortunately by that point the deficit was a little too much to make up. Will also got a couple of attacks off on Strange and Iron Fist which managed to get activated tokens on Juggernaut and Mystique which made it even harder for me to claw back.
I lose this one. Just. Brotherhood 16-17 Midnight Sons
Game 4 - Simon - Avengers
For my final game I came up against Simon and it's another Avengers match up for me. Simon wins priority and selects extracts which leaves me on secures. Research Station (again) and Mutant Madman are drawn. I decide I'm going to use similar tactics to what I used in my first game and be aggressive with the researcher. It's not a stand on secure this time so that will also help me be aggressive as I don't need to commit characters to just standing on a secure.
Simon's Squad: Captain America (Steve Rogers), Hulk, Black Widow, Luke Cage, Iron Man
My Squad: Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Gambit
I decide on deployment that if I remove Hulk from the game I should be able to see out this game as I have a lot more attrition based characters in my squad. Simon moved his Hulk straight on to the Researcher and I get a bit of a dice spike on Magneto from a range 3 attack whilst Simon rolls nothing on Hulks defence dice. This allows me to use Climbing Gear to get Magneto contesting the researcher and throw a Size 4 terrain piece at Hulk. Simons dice were poor again on the dodge roll and Hulk took another chunk of damage. By the end of Turn 1 Simons Hulk had taken 12 damage. I manage to secure the researcher Turn 1. I then KO Simons Hulk from my first activation with Magneto from yet more hot dice as Simon then tried to also attrition down my characters on the researcher with his remaining characters. Simon seemed to lose sight of the objectives, so I took advantage of this as Gambit darted around for the rest of the game to take my two back secures and Simons right secure left undefended - whilst Rogue, Witch and Magneto continued to win the researcher. That left me with enough points to win the game at the end of Turn 3 - and honestly - the dice gods were with me on this one - I think that would have been a very different game had Hulk survived for longer than he did.
I win this one - Brotherhood 21-3 Avengers
I finish the tournament in 8th place with a 2-2 scoring. I said to myself on the morning before I left if I finished the day having won 2 games I'd go home happy and that's exactly what happened. I had played a lot of practice games with Mystique before this tournament, and ironically, the two games I won was with a Magneto focused squad - so that gives me some food for thought moving forward.
I'd like to thank all of my opponents - all four were brilliant to play against and we had some laughs along the way. I'd also like to thank everyone else that turned up to the event at such short notice and purchased tickets to support the store - I really hope to see all of you back for next months event. I'd also like to say a huge congratulations to Mike for winning the event with his Criminal Syndicate - beating Anth's Guardians in the final.
Also a huge shoutout to Lee and the team at Pro Tech Games for running such an incredible event and giving us somewhere to roll dice every week.
I wouldn't be doing my bit if I didn't use my platform to give them a shameless plug.
Website: https://protechmodels.co.uk/
Tickets For The Next Event: https://protechmodels.co.uk/collections/events/products/mcp-monthly-mayhem-march-20th
Final Standings
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