Welcome back to SG Protocol.
Today we will look at the raw stats of the lists for the Las Vegas Open 24 Invitational tournament. We’ll take a look at how everything shook out later in the week.
First up affiliations:
Guardians followed by Web Warriors and Hellfire Club is kind of expected here with those three posting the highest win rates since the character updates.
Brotherhood and Shield being so often played is a bit less expected. Wakanda is also pretty popular this LVO.
Extremely unexpected is 4 Midnight Sons players besides the faction being pretty low in win rates since the character updates.
Speaking of the updates: 5 Defenders players purely because of the updates that gave Daredevil a leadership (on top of very good buffs to Matt himself).
So much of the field taken by the big 3 means there’s less of other factions than you would normally expect. Only 2 Cabal and Avengers players and a lot of factions generally on the rise, like Doc Ock Spider-Foes only taken once. One brave soul decided to shoot themselves in the foot and play Weapon X.
Speaking of X: only 4 X-Men in the field despite their many updates (but of course their main leadership git nerfed quite a bit).
While Dark Dimension and Sentinels are probably too high risk takes for such an event no Convocation is surprising. No Hydra is mind boggling for me. Red Skull, Master of Hydra has a 57% win rate. Right up there with the top 3. The overall stats of the faction are really dragged down by Struckers 32%. Maybe Hydra players were too afraid of CGR toasting Mr Schmidt to take him.
Next up characters:
Bojack Norseman is leading the field with a huge margin being included in a whopping 39/64 lists. I think we’ll have to expect him getting adjusted in the next character updates (if they ever come). I main Asgard so I wouldn’t want to see them overdo it but probably changing his spend to reduce to either only enemy effects or probably to just innate reduce by 1 to a minimum of 1. (Or even have him pay to only enemy effects damage and still have the minimum).
Next highest is Toad who remains the overall best scenario 2 threat.
Black Cat in place 3 shows that her “nerf” was really just a sidegrade and she is still extremely good.
Former ubiquitous Hulk sits at 22 uses which is still over a 3rd of lists but not as omipresent as he used to be.
Miles then follows who, with the updates to Black Cat, becomes a much more regular sight as a stealing splash. Having so many Web Warriors certainly helps his numbers too of course.
Agent Venom, Spider-Woman and Rhino all rather surprisingly (especially for the former two) top CGR in uses.
“Only” 14 players decided to bring the Meta Boogyman #1 .
ASM coming in just a place behind is rather surprising as well.
The rest of the top 25 aren’t as surprising but seeing no less than 7 2 threats in there (with more Nebulas than Rockets) is quite a statement.
More to be expected general Good Stuff in the area from 26 to 50. Emma would be surprising if HFC wasn’t so prevelant. Drax seeing play in affiliation wasn’t always a given but he has secured a space in 6 rosters too.
Big suprise here for me is The Black Widow with 5 uses.
Sadly Longshanks doesn’t care to give us the info about the “All others” but of course I (and I guess you) wanted to know more, so I went through all the lists to find who else was used and who wasn’t:
Red Skull, Master of Hydra 3
Kingpin 3
Captain Marvel, Cosmic Avenger 3
Black Bolt 2
Klaw 2
Elektra 2
Thor, Prince of Asgard 2
She-Hulk 2
Medusa 2
Crystal 2
Wolverine 2
Winter Soldier 2
Proxima Midnight 2
Loki, God of Mischief 2
Skurge the Executioner 2
Deadpool 2
the Original Human Torch 2
Honey Badger 2
MODOK, Scientist Supreme 1
Ulik 1
Squirrel Girl 1
Wasp 1
Magik 1
Captain America (Steve Rogers) 1
Heimdall, the All-Seeing 1
Cyclops 1
Ms. Marvel 1
Quicksilver 1
Beast 1
Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist 1
Ant-Man 1
Captain Marvel 1
Corvus Glaive (+Reality Gem) 1
Black Dwarf 1
Red Skull, Master of the World 1
Enchantress 1 (should be 64 but 🤷🏽)
The Blob 1
Malekith 1
Red Guardian 1
Omega Red 1
Hood 1
Valkyrie 1
Gwenpool 1
That combines to 107 of 157 available models used in at least one of the 64 lists. Which despite the heavy percentage of Guardians and Web Warriors makes for a pretty diverse meta.
Who didn’t get in?
Ancient One, Arnim Zola, Baron Helmut Zemo, Baron Mordo, Baron Strucker, Black Swan, Black Widow Agent of SHIELD, Bob Agent of Hydra, Captain America First Avenger, Carnage, Cassandra Nova, Clea, Crossbones, Darkstar, Doctor Octopus, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Ebony Maw, Gambit, Green Goblin, Hulkbuster, Jean Grey, Kraven the Hunter, Lockjaw, MODOK, Mister Sinister, Mysterio, Punisher, Red Skull, Ronan the Accuser, Sabretooth, Scarlet Witch, Sentinel MK4, Sentinel Prime MK4, Shadowland Daredevil, Sin, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Steve Rogers Captain America, Super Giant, Taskmaster, Ultron, Ursa Major, Venom, Viper, Vision, War Machine, Winter Soldier Operative.
A bunch of characters that you wouldn’t really expect here like Sentinel MK4s or OG Core Set Peter Parker. The lack of Hydra models also isn’t a shock since they are very much in affiliation models and with no Hydra and barely any Cabal it’s understandable. Most notable omission is probably Steve 3 but with only two Avengers in the field there wasn’t much room for him (he is probably the least splashable 4 threat in the game offering barely anything besides his leadership). Taskmaster not making any list feels weird to me personally but it probably comes from which affiliations where played. He isn’t particularly well served in either of Guardians, Webs and Hellfire Club which make up a huge part of the field together.
Team Tactics Cards:
Nothing too out of the ordinary here. 10 brave souls left home without Brace for Impact. At this point I think AMG could think about making Brace a free 11th and 6th card for everyone. Don’t know if that’s actually a good idea but it is almost a lock for every roster unless you have a very specific reason for two other restricted cards.
Sacrifice is now the second restricted cards for a majority of players and Fall back the most common unrestricted. In general defensive cards make most of the rosters, while Marked for Death against the many Web Warriors is also prevalent.
Special mention to Foreign Assignment which goes hand in hand with the many Agents Venom.
Crisis:
A real stand out in Legacy Virus but besides that it’s pretty much as expected. Also each crisis haven been taken at least 6 times is nice to see.