TseungTsu here with episode 4 of “What’cha Playin?”. Today I’m joined by recent LVO Invitation Champion Mike DeLuca. Mike’s an MCP enthusiast and also a member of The Danger Room podcast.
Mike, congrats again on the victory I heard it was very well earned. I know you put a lot of time and tinkering into this list so lets jump right into it, What’cha Playing?
[Characters]
– Black Cat: 3
– Black Panther: 4
– Corvus Glaive: 4
— Infinity Gem: Reality: 1
– Doctor Voodoo: 4
– Ghost-Spider: 3
– Moon Knight: 3
– Proxima Midnight: 3
– Spider-Man (Miles Morales): 3
– Thanos, the Mad Titan: 6
— Infinity Gem: Space: 1
— Infinity Gem: Mind: 1
– Toad: 2
[Extract Crises]
– Alien Ship Crashes in Downtown! [C]: 20
– Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! [C]: 14
– Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership [C]: 17
[Team Tactics]
– Advanced R&D
– All Webbed Up
– Brace for Impact
– Disarm
– Marked For Death
– Medpack
– Mission Objective
– Mothership
– Sacrifice
– Spider-Tracker
[Secure Crises]
– Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends on Earth [D]: 16
– Infinity Formula Goes Missing [B]: 17
– Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 [D]: 17
I know you pride yourself on innovating and thinking outside the box with rosters, what made you decide to add black order to the Web Warriors shell?
After the new rules came out I wanted to see where the best home for Black Order was going to be as I knew they were still going to be competitive and probably shouldn’t be played as a single affiliation anymore. I had started with Sam Avengers due to the success of that list in the last league and I’ve also dabbled with Criminals. After testing, my opinion is that Avengers don’t need Black Order’s help to be successful and Criminals have to sacrifice a lot of their tech pieces and toys to fit Black Order. I’m convinced at this point that Webs is their best home because all of the characters inter-mingle with each other and their game plans have different goals while also playing on the same set of crises. For example, Webs love map D because they can play musical chairs with the secure points without fighting while Black Order loves map D because they can isolate the enemy team and execute one at a time without much clap back or VP escalation. The extracts are all hot potato because they are great without priority, slow scoring for Black Order, Reality Corvus has double the odds to find them, and are great objectives to steal and run away with Black Cat and Voodoo. I’m not longing for space in the list, and basically found a way to get everything I wanted.
Oka so what made you interested in playing this kind of list?
I love playing control style games and these are two of the top control factions in the game. I feel they fill each other’s crisis and matchup holes almost perfectly. I also wanted to leverage Black Order’s new found flexibility of Infinity Gems not taking roster slots. The skill ceiling for playing each of those affiliations is some of the highest in the game and is very rewarding to successfully pilot at a competitive level.
Okay so you want to focus on the affiliations control, what’s the game plan?
The game plan is to spread the game out as much as possible using map shape D with either the Spider’s mobility or Black Order’s control from Thanos to split the enemy team up and score VPs while interacting with the opponent as little as possible. Between Life Saver, Mission Objective, Spider Tracker, Sacrifice, Black Cat, Toad, and Voodoo the list has tremendous game in getting extracts and holding onto them often until the end of the game. When scenario play isn’t an option on things like Research Base and map C, Black Order comes in to punish your opponent for playing such lame scenarios.
Sounds like a solid plan and one I might steal in the future. What’s your favorite thing about the list?
It doesn’t really have any bad matchups and is extremely flexible while fitting my playstyle to a tee. I love playing uninteractive games that come down to out-maneuvering my opponent and not chucking dice in a scrum. Ghost Spider and Black Panther are also two of my favorite characters to play in this game and they both have very important roles in the game plan.
Minimizing dice is certainly a valid plan. Congrats again on the invitational win. Before I let you go I have to know how much tinkering and testing when into this roster? And did the event at the Las Vegas Open go as you expected it to?
Firstly, thank you! LVO prep started right as the new rules dropped so the list above is a product of 2.5 months of tuning. In fact, Black Panther was the newest addition a week before the event. My new year’s resolution was to win an event because I kept coming up short after placing in top cuts and it all boiled down to me not playing the most optimal stuff in favor of what I liked thematically. I then decided to play the best stuff no matter what and it turns out I won the first event I did that. There were a lot of great players and it was a surprise for sure because you need so many things to go your way, but I’m proud of myself and excited to see what’s next for myself and for MCP.
I’m glad you were able to take down the LVO invitational and bring home the trophy! Best of luck to you in the upcoming season of TTS. Remember you can listen to Mike do a deep dive on this and so much more on the Danger Room podcast!
If you have a list you want to talk about shoot me an email at TT@Acrossthebifrost.com!
And FINALLY, if your Local Game Store doesn’t have what you want or can’t get what you need for for MCP, I highly recommend our sponsors.
NA: https://www.discountgamesinc.com/
UK: https://blackgategames.co.uk/
Till next time everyone, Cheers and Happy Gaming,
TT