How to start the affiliation
I would honestly first pick up Shang-Chi and Silver Sable followed by Hulk, your choice of Daredevil+ Bullseye and/or Doctor Strange and Wong as well as Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Add Namor and Black Panther, Chosen of Bast and you have your core very much there.The affiliation is very deep and has a lot of good characters but with those mentioned you have your probably most used models in hand already. Also all of the affiliated TTCs. Just note that Pentagrams of Falafel (let me have fun with this) was updated in the 22 card pack to cost 3 power.
What leaderships are available and what is the typical archetype
Mystic Empowerment is… weird. It looks good reading it but it doesn’t really do that much on the actual table. Best case scenario: you use it on a builder against a target with one obvious weak defense, make your power back and Hex them. Awesome. Worst case scenario: You paid a power for no effect. And the problem is that the worst case comes up a lot more than you’d like. It makes it a win more leadership where if you’re rolling well it will increase your momentum but if you’re rolling poorly it also punishes you with the power cost. Note that it becomes much more interesting with Gainers, and especially Beams and Area attacks as it counts for the entire Attack Action not just one attack. Sadly those are (probably for this specific reason) hard to come by in affiliation.
It also creates the awkward situation of Strange himself being more of a support and control character while his leadership favours fighting. A typical archetype will be a type 3 usually for Strange leadership.
Marvel Knights is a great leadership for central brawling and especially fitting in style for Matt Murdock himself.
It’s not particularly hard to see which archetype Daredevil prefers. His team can be build to full on type 4 but the roster is definitely deep enough to make type 3 your default.
Who could be added to the affiliation, especially as a leader
Jessica Jones. Give us the full Netflix Squad please AMG 🙏
Rating every affiliated TTC and character
Team Tactics (4)
Cover Me
B+. You need a big beefy target for this card to be worth it. Luckily you have a couple of Hulks affiliated.
Mystic Ward
A+. Turning of a secure at will is game winningly strong.
Pentagram of Farallah
A. You have to learn how to use the card from Erek Wong but he’s had incredible success with it.
Street Smarts
A. Being able to just stop being pushed or thrown is absolutely worth the 1 damage you have to take for it.
Characters (26)
Amazing Spider-Man (5)
A-. Amazing Pete is the king of P2Fs, super durable, a natural safe grab and can help keep your team on their feet. Sadly all of that doesn’t really further your typical game plan here.
Ancient One (4)
B. Ancient One is a perfectly fine Mystic Brawler that can displace enemy characters on their turns.
Black Panther, Chosen of Bast (3)
B-. Bast Panthers kit looks great but it doesn’t really come together in my experience.
Blade (4)
C+. Blade is a fine character that has very little chance of beating out the competition for the affiliated 4 threat slot here unless you just like him and want to play him.
Clea (3)
C-. Clea needs a rework sadly. She just falls over dead much too fast to have a big impact on the game.
Daredevil (4)
B. Matt is fast, more durable than he looks and his spender, especially after waking up after dazing is amazing. He’ll also have games where he misses every trigger and annoy the hell out of you.
Doctor Strange (5)
B-. Original Doctor Strange shows his age a bit. He is a very good control character that supports your team well. But you can simply get more for your 5 threat investment.
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme (5)
A. Supreme Strange is a fantastic control and damage 5 threat. He doesn’t use Daredevils leadership particularly well though.
Elektra (4)
B-. Elektra is the only way to get in affiliation Grunts which is always relevant but her kit is too reliant on her dealing damage with her Gainer.
Ghost Rider (5)
B+. Johnny Blaze is key to the Pentagrams plan and decent outside of it.
Hawkeye (3)
B. A reliable back point sitter that has rather high damage potential and decent objective play with his place.
Hulk (6)
A+. Arguably still the best threat for threat model in the game (now sharing it with Thor 2, who is the more pure damage focused character of the two). You’d have a hard time to convince me to not have Banner in your Defenders roster.
Iron Fist (3)
B+. Heroes for Hire is obviously a big draw to Danny and his The Iron Fist spender brings a unique control element making him an interesting option at 3 threat.
Luke Cage (3)
A. Just slot him into your roster. You’ll probably won’t regret it.
Magik (3)
B. Magik is fine. She is mobile with good damage output but she also falls over dead quite fast.
Moon Knight (3)
A+++ for being my favourite character in Marvel. Sadly not in MCP though. Realistically he’s a B. His best, but rather boring, play pattern is throwing Cresents out of Stealth range.
Namor the Sub-Mariner (5)
A. Someone said Namor is the second best character at everything in the game or something like that. Which means he is pretty great overall.
Punisher (3)
B-. Frank isn’t bad. Automatic Rapid fire and a superpower advance are great but he doesn’t really like either leadership a lot which is a shame.
Scarlet Witch (5)
B-. As always Wanda has high damage potential but suffers from the lack of action economy.
Shang-Chi (4)
A. Shang is maybe the most well rounded 4 threat nowadays and having him affiliated almost makes him an auto take. He’s also just really fun to play.
Silver Sable (4)
B-. Sable has a cool kit she struggles to pay for which neither leadership helps, Stranges even actively hinders.
Spider-Man (Peter Parker) (4)
C+. If you want a lot of displacement and basically no offensive output look no further. Honestly nowadays just use Scarlet Spider instead if you want this type of kit and can afford the splash space.
The Immortal Hulk (7)
B-. iHulk just kind of compares badly to his 6 threat version. You don’t really get that much of an improvement for the extra threat you paid (expect for the much nicer physical sculpt).
Valkyrie (3)
B. A fine fast damage dealer with some control. Probably under explored in Defenders but the competition for slots is also very hard here.
Wolverine (4)
B. Especially nice if you want to bring Mayor Fisk as a Crisis where he can dominate together with Hulk.
Wong (2)
A. I love Wong but hate playing him. He is good nonetheless and essential to the Pentagrams plan.
Example Roster
Note that, as always, this isn’t a competitively optimised roster but here to show of the affiliation. Especially if you want to focus on Pentagrams as your main plan you’ll want to switch out some characters and look at some splashes.
Characters (10)
Ancient One (4)
Daredevil (4)
Hulk (6)
Iron Fist (3)
Luke Cage (3)
Namor the Sub-Mariner (5)
Shang-Chi (4)
Valkyrie (3)
Wong (2)
Wolverine (4)
Team Tactics (10)
Cover Me
Mystic Ward
Pentagram of Farallah
Street Smarts
Chi Mastery
Heroes for Hire
Prince‘s Protection
Human Weapon
Brace for Impact (R)
Patch Up (R)
Secure Crisis
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)
Mayor Fisk Vows To Find Missing Witnesses (H, 16)
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)
Extract Crisis
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)
Fear Grips World As “Worthy“ Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
That’s it for today. Next up: Guardians of the Galaxy
Cheers from Germany 🍻
My PayPal tip jar: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PKHQDUC97YTAC
