A giant team event is scheduled for August 3rd at Element Games in the UK. 16 teams of 5 players will battle for the title.
The roster build is even more restrictive than the WTC or Squad Goals is. Along with the usual no duplicate characters in a team this event also doesn’t allow duplicate TTCs. And you can only take a Crisis a second time once your team has used all 22 at least once.
This is also the first major event happening after the Ministravaganza TTC rotation.
With that let’s take a look at the lists:
The majority of the 16 teams have Spider-Foes, Defenders and Guardians of the Galaxy in their rosters. Probably not the top three we would’ve expected before the rotation but understandable now. Half the teams have X-Men, which honestly still feels a bit low for me and, even more interesting, half the teams have at least the option to go Black Order (many of those are dual affiliated rosters though).
9 Teams chose to not have a Web Warriors player. That’s probably the biggest news here and honestly a bit confusing to me. SHIELD is rather popular and Asgard, who aren’t allowed to bring their new toys to this event, is tight with Cabal which I certainly wouldn’t have predicted.
X-Force numbers are rather down, Winter Guard numbers comparably high. Only three Wakanda players after the loss of ARND. One of them brings Wong. The other two lists are even dual affiliated rosters. One with Defenders but without Wong which is very interesting. The other was a Avengers dual.
Unusual low numbers for Brotherhood. They of course suffer from the Deception downgrade a bit but Magneto should enjoy more models staying on the midline.
Unlike in a singles event I’m not particularly shocked to see the low number of Hellfire Club players. They are rather difficult to include in a five person team because they kind of want to steal all of their teammates favourite toys.
I certainly didn’t expect Midnight Sons in the short list of unused affiliations. They got a big boost by the rotation in enabling every model that could play Eyes on the Prize to still safe grab with the bump.
Speaking of Eyes on the Prize targets. There was a model AMG specifically called out as big too good with the card and ubiquitous in the game because of it. Guess who is the only character that every one of the 16 teams is bringing:
Playing Eyes on Beta Ray Bill wasn’t even the right call for many affiliations that didn’t have a way to get him to three power in round 2 despite using the card. That is now off the table but Bill is just very good at just staying on the midline and surviving. Which is why it doesn’t shock me to see him being part of every team in the event.
The 14s are really where I’ve gun “huh?” a few times. I wouldn’t have bet money on teams going without Toad, Crimson Dynamo and especially Baron Zemo.
Namor, who is a safe grab and Objective steal combined in one fast package makes it into almost every team. As do Hulk, Thanos in his two usual Gem configurations and, despite the loss of Age of Ultron, Ultron Metal Tyrant. I think it’s the right call for Ultron 2 as he’s still a very good model even without the card.
Rhino now “only” made 12 of 16 teams but despite not being changed in any way so does Black Cat. Shang-Shi makes it into 12 teams in his first major event after being released. More Nebulas than Miles’ is again not something I would’ve predicted.
Seeing as there are 10 lists that can play Spider-Foes I’m honestly surprised Electro isn’t used more than 10 times over all the teams. He’s still pretty obviously the best of the four new Foes.
10 Defenders players means 10 Daredevils. Simple as that. Amazing Spidey is also in more than half of the teams. Agent Venom numbers are surprisingly low considering there are 9 Guardians, 7 SHIELD and 7 Web Warriors players. Of course in a team format you have to make concessions to your teammates but so many teams choosing not to have him in their 50 is surprising.
Shocker made half the teams and as did Cosmic Ghost Rider who gets a boost from more targets on the midline. Doc Ock is also used only 8 times meaning at least two Spider-Foes rosters are Green Goblin leadership focused.
Black Panther, Chosen of Bast makes it into 5 teams in his first major event.
Four Gwenoms despite no Midnight Sons. Enchantress is used too little with only 3 teams using her. That is just objectively wrong (you might disagree. That means you’re wrong too 😁). Hela isn’t particularly popular either and she definitely does suffer the loss of Eyes on the Prize much more than Bill does.
The Black Widow I would’ve expected to see more, especially in a team format where her 2 threat version is used by almost every team. In a post Eyes on the Prize world I think her value increased quite a bit.
Iceman is severely underused and undervalued by the greater community in my opinion and experience. He creates such an annoyance on the table that your opponent has to either play around or commit quite some resources to dealing with. His bad matchups are also rather obvious so deciding not to bring him in a given game is a pretty easy decision.
Black Dwarf is another character I could see having a lot of increased value in being just a ball of health you can stand on the midline and be relatively save he will survive the round no matter what. He isn’t even in all Black Order rosters here though.
Supergiant made it in two competitive rosters 🥳
Is she the secret anti Namor tech you need? Most likely not but her model is pretty cool so it’s nice it might get put on the table for some games.
Next up TTCs. Once again remember they couldn’t be repeated among the team so with only 4 restricted cards left on the table not every player got one.
Somehow Sacrifice, Fall Back and, even more mind-blowing, Indomitable (which is even better considering only one in five can have Brace) didn’t make it into every team. I got nothing here.
Robbery is still used after it’s nerf, showing that the nerf was fair and necessary but was far from killing it. Loads of people bring Skuttlebutt for Bill, which is a good card and Custom Upgrades, Suprise Web Head and Mystic Ward immediately become the faction defining cards for Spider-Foes and Defenders respectively.
Seeing Heavy Firepower and Grievous Wounds on the list is most likely a product of the combination of the TTCs being rotated and restricted to once per team. Even with the rotation I think these cards usually have a hard time making it into competitive rosters.
An absolute terrible card in my opinion in Venomized makes into 5 teams 🤷🏽
All three Wakanda rosters still bring Spirit.
And Wakanda Forver.
Well Laid-Space Plans (aka Psychic Shockwave) makes it into two lists. I sincerely hope the people who brought the card will get it off. Instant win in my book there regardless of the final score.
Overall we see an expexted increase in character specific cards.
Next up crisis’
Every team has to use each crisis at least once before it can use any of them a second time. Every team chose to double up on Hammers and Skrulls and no team brought two copies of Deadly Meteors.
And finally Infinity Stones.
Overall quite popular but that’s is of course mostly due to Thanos being in so many lists here.
Good luck to everyone involved and cheers from Germany 🍻