Welcome back to SG Protocol .
Today we look at everything new about Mutants in MCP after Ministravaganza 2023 and it is… quite a bit.
Let’s start with the updated character cards and then move on to the new stuff. For the updates we go in chronological order.
Cable
Cable gets more incentive to get in closer with the rerolls in R3 and his leadership gets a big glow up in being able to rerolls Skulls now and the situationally ability to ignore cover. His health has also increased to a mighty 7 on both sides. He looses the Stagger on his injured side spender but I think that’s a price most of us are gladly accepting for all the increases in other areas he got.
Colossus
One of my two favourite mutants. And now finally a character I can take in every mutant roster without feeling I damaged myself. He is pretty fast now and has an incentive to be right in the thick of it with his bodyguard changing to a “taunt”. I’m really looking forward to playing him a lot.
Cyclops
One of the worst leaderships in the game changes to a really cool one. It’s a reward leadership that powers up your team for dealing damage. A bit like RS1 leadership but instead of the person dealing the damage it’s for another allied character. There are a bunch of good attrition X-Men and basically all of them have good ways to spent power. So I’m expecting to see a big increase in Cyclops on the table and attrition X-Men to be a new archetype. I’m certainly already building lists for it.
Deadpool
I was a bit surprised to see him on the list as I thought he was OK already. But then again I’m not a particular big fan of him so maybe me my word didn’t count for much here. Bang changed to a gainer but lost the potential third attack. Stab did get the potential for a second one now though which makes DP still a good pick in Steve 3 Avengers. Also gains a place which with Bang being a gainer he can use really reliably.
Jean Grey
I honestly had to look up the old card to see what the changes were. I don’t own her personally (split the box with Brother B. for Cassandra), but I might be more willing to change that now. She gained the pierce on a Skull (which is a bit weird that one as it is not a success for her, but still helps get more damage through), her Spender was reduced from 6 to 5 and most importantly she now gains two additional power per power phase making her quite cool overall kit that much more useable. Having the throw or push online every round (unless stunned) is gonna make a world of difference for her.
Storm
Surprising basically noone one of the best leaderships in the game receives a nerf. The Storm hop now costs a power (killing some of the insane turn 1 plays with it effectively) and the cover gets down- (side?) graded to a defensive reroll. It is definitely an upgrade against anyone with ignores cover effects though who were commonly taken just for the Storm matchup. And while the leadership got taken down a bit Storm herself has gotten two big upgrades. Eye of the storm and Hurricane both cost a power less now. And having been on the wrong end of an increased Ice Blizzard I can say that especially the Eye of the Storm reduction is a massive damage output boost to the Queen of Wakanda. (Where she might see a bit more play now? Maybe?)
Wolverine
Best at What I do (is he though?) decreased to two power making it a much easier to use superpower. It also now only states attack action so if you are sitting on 5 power you can use it in combination with Berserker Barrage. I think he now changes from a liability to someone you can always consider in one of his many affiliations as he really likes most of those leaderships. But he might still not outperform a lot of other 4 threats to be considered a worthwhile splash for other affiliations.
First new stat card shown was that of the one and only German X-Men Kurt Wagner. Not only because of his home country and despite his faith Kurt has always been one of my two favourite X-Men. (It’s weird that two of my favourite Marvel characters in him and Daredevil are these super religious people when I’m a strong atheist myself…)
Nightcrawler looks absolutely fantastic. He is more damage focused than I would’ve expected but I’m not complaining at all here. The amount of places he can get in a turn is fittingly enormous, Unglaublich Acrobatics (which should have an E at the end of the German word 😉) helps him stay alive as well as his pseudo stealth.
I think he is gonna be incredibly fun to play on the table. I’m really looking forward to trying him in my Convocation list where most characters have some kind of placement effect.
Also shown off was Kitty Pryde, the Shadowcat:
I’m not gonna lie, I made an audible “whooo” sound once I saw she was 3 threat (and the comment they gave during her cards reveal made it sound like Ice Man will be too but don’t quote me on that 😅). What we get for the 3 threat is a long mover with Stealth and a place (so the two best things about Viper), coupled with a very nice gainer in Get’em Lockheed, an interesting builder that might be much more impactful than it’s 4 dice strength leads us to believe (or not, only time will tell really), a decent spender and a very good defensive ability in can’t touch this. She is gonna be an incredible objective runner I think.
We were also treated to the stat card of the Shadow King and that’s a really difficult one to evaluate without having played it on the table:
Mental Shackle is easily among the best builders in the game. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think it’s the first time we see root as a wild trigger and that is such a devastating condition for so many models. The spender seems OK but not overwhelming. It’s gonna be a lot of damage potentially but only that. Astral Fiend looks like the main part of his kit and my guess is it didn’t start out as an action. They mentioned that they had to turn him down during playtesting and it feels like making that an action was part of it. It’s pretty rad as he can reach a lot of the table with the combo but it also costs 3 and an action and the token is removed in the clean up phase. I definitely want to try him once he’s out and I’m very interested on which affiliations he will land in.
On face value he looks like a lower end 5 but then again Wild Root can absolutely destroy some models day. I think if you play Shadow King you want a way to get him into range aside from the very costly Astral Feind.
With the new characters we were also shown some new tactics cards:
High cost, potentially high reward card. Completely new is the “Active: Action” marker. If it means that it costs Kurt an action and gets him staggered that makes the card something you only bring if you have a very specific plan for it.
This card is awesome. I mean just read it.
While convoluted to the max in its determination on who can play it (Jean and most likely Prof X. at the cards release), its effect is pretty great, especially at no power cost.
That’s it for the mutants. Next we will take a look at what Ministravaganza had to offer for Asgard.
See you then and cheers from Germany 🍻