Another Monday, another tier list! This time: 2 threats! In this series I put out community polls using conjoint analysis to get each player’s rankings from best to worst then average the placings across all responses. In short the community ranked all 2 threats according to public perception. If you missed the 4 threat iteration of this series, I recommend starting here where I cover the bottom half of the 4 threat rankings and explain the methodology a bit more. Or you can check out the 5 threat version here.
7 – Wong
Cue the sad trombone music, Wong is at the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to 2 threats and its not very hard to see why. His builder is literally the worst attack in the game, his defenses are worse than terrible when not around Strange (and only Strange, not Supreme Strange!), and his support tools while decent are not nearly enough to make up for the deficit. Now thats not to say he should NEVER see play, I’ve seen people running him in Convocation and even occasionally Midnight Sons to acceptable results occasionally but even in those situations I find myself hard pressed to not suggest Nebula, Toad, or Okoye instead.
6 – Bob, Agent of Hydra
I want to love Bob more and I’m sure a large chunk of my readers feel the same way too. Bob is a really neat backline objective holder who promises a single moment of glory (or lack thereof) once per game. In fact I’m a bit sad Sam Spam players haven’t adopted him more as he creates another source of a proactive leadership trigger ala All You’ve Got. But I get why he doesn’t get much love – he’s only Cabal whose popularity is at an all time low, dazing yourself is weirdly painful/annoying on a character you rely on to hold back points for you, and quite frankly sometimes that rocket just does nothing even with its excellent dice. But even with all that I feel Bob is an insufficiently explored character who WILL see his time in the sun in the future, whether in Sin Cabal or some configuration we haven’t even begun to conceptualize yet.
5 – Black Widow
Black Widow has been maligned since even the core box days. In fact people had such disdain for her (and 2 threats in general) that it took ~6 months for people to realize how OP Okoye was as they had internalized the idea that 2 threat characters were mediocre from Natasha’s Core Set debut. But again she has a lot of great tools that people are overlooking – great defensive suite, great mobility, generally a great extract player. But her defensive tools are just worse than Okoye’s and unfortunately a small base long mover can’t steal a midline extract without a LOT of help. Thankfully Sam Spam players have been rehabilitating her image as they were forced to play her if they wanted to pull off the terrifying seven wide iteration of the Avengers, and hopefully it will encourage more people to explore her possibilities in the future.
4 – Rocket Raccoon
Before I was brought to see the glory that is Okoye in the 2 threat slot, I was a worshipper at the altar of Rocket Raccoon. Range 5, 5 dice builder is a wild incinerate trigger from Cable’s builder and considering that’s basically all he’ll do from round 2 on its a pretty solid deal. Slip in some Hadron Enforcer attacks alongside some Booby Traps and you can really wreak some havoc (hell, Booby Traps the Vortex trigger on Hadron Enforcer if you have 7 power to spare). The flipside of that amazing damage output is the fact that he just dies, trivially. Captain America (either one) throws his shield at him, bypassing his cover and plowing through his 2 defense dice? Dead. Throw a Groot bodyguarding him into his furry ass? Dead. Randomly caught in an Enchantress beam spam? Double dead. If you have a core team that loves to stand in the middle and will make it hard to get at Rocket he’ll make a great addition but if you’re already struggling to put characters on the middle line it might not be the roster for him.
3 – Nebula
Honestly I’m a bit surprised that Nebula fell behind Toad in the rankings considering her recent resurgence. Her talent at playing on C and E secures/extracts have put her at the forefront of 2 threat selection conversation once more. Oh, your opponent double moved onto a midline point? Single move up (you can cover 2/3 C points with her with correct placement), fire off a 4 dice reroll any shot and threaten to Shock Sword Assault into Strike next round. If she can always fight in scenario relevant places she hits harder than most 3 threats, with the downside of being made of paper and not being able to be scenario relevant herself.
2 – Toad
The flip side of the Nebula coin, Toad is an EXCELLENT scenario player (specifically with extracts but no slouch on flip secures either) that doesn’t fight quite so well. Fun fact, if Toad moves up to grab a midline extract at max r2, your opponent can’t Advanced R&D a power onto Enchantress and double move into r1 to steal the extract off of you. It also leaves you immune to any small or medium based medium movers wanting to get a r3 attack off of you with a single move off the deployment line without movement tricks. His defense isn’t anything to write home about, especially with his abysmal 3 stamina on his injured side but with the upside that if your opponent fails to pop him in a single attack he can run away. In my eyes he is the picture of a perfectly designed 2 threat – excels in his role but as a character can’t play a complete game as well as 3 threats can.
1 – Okoye
To the surprise of literally no one who pays attention to TTS League play rates, Okoye is the undisputed queen of 2 threats. In the immortal words of Sooner5
By virtue of Martial Artist and her reroll passive she’s already tankier than most 3 threats out there, her damage output both at r2 and r4 is comparable to a LOT of affiliated role-player 3 threats you’d take, and she has bodyguard on top. To put her 2 threat dominance / over-the-curve-ness into perspective I see people demanding nerfs for her as much or even more so than Enchantress / Medusa! To be honest due to her low cost she’s arguably the most auto-include character in the game, ESPECIALLY when people are obsessed with being able to play 5 wide at 16 threat and below. In fact, I actually can’t remember the last time I ran a roster WITHOUT Okoye since I started right when Wakanda came out. Unlike M.O.D.O.K., Thor, or any of a number of meta staples that have come and gone Okoye hasn’t gone anywhere since her arrival which is just a testament to how best in class she really is.
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