The 2024 World Team Championship in Kopenhagen, Denmark is just a week away and today we’ve had roster lock and reveal. For anyone not in the know: this is a 5 man team event where your team can only have one of each character in the game in their lists. TTC and Crisis Cards are available to everyone. This year has 42 teams which makes it 210 players, that, thanks to Dr. Norbert, have all posted their lists in MCT coded form so we have the full stats.
Let’s see what has been taken:
You could say the new character pack has brought “some” life back into Asgard who were barely even present last year and have now even taken the crown from the Web Warriors. 10 teams elected against having someone playing them which is probably a reaction to the (needed) restrictions of Researcher and Brothers in Arms. Web Warriors lost a restricted slot with the (long time coming) restriction of Fall Back but are still present in the majority of teams. Cabal, who were the previous kings of the E with the Thanos, Red Skull 3 list also are in over half of the teams and X-Men are there because they are just extremely popular. The same can be said for Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy who have quite the resurgence here. I can’t wait to dig back into them myself once Richard Rider (Nova) hits the table. I hope he’ll be good but I’ll be playing him regardless. Back to the topic: Defenders have surprisingly low numbers to me. I would have guessed them to be in the twenties, too.
Spider-Foes, Criminals and SHIELD are kind of where I would have expected them: popular but far from omnipresent. Black Order has proved to be a good splash affiliation last year and is being used here again. Hydra is a great affiliation often flying under the radar. X-Force numbers probably dropped heavily after the Ministravaganza TTC updates.
Barely even legal Servants of the Apocalypse immediately make it into 6 teams. Midnight Sons, who of course aren’t allowed their shiny new toys that’ll come out soon, also make 6 teams. Convocation is present more often than expected but Wakanda has pretty much fallen off a cliff since the ban of Advanced RnD. Brotherhood are in a whole that they couldn’t dig themselves out of since the rotation and their player numbers have tanked accordingly. I think they and Wakanda are still strong but we’ll see. Hellfire Club has the problem of stealing their teammates favourite toys which is why they aren’t showing their usual single events numbers. And then we have only 4 Inhumans despite them being the statistical best affiliation since the card update even edging out new Asgard. They just aren’t as interesting as characters to attract a lot of players. I’ve read War of Kings for an upcoming article this week and let me tell you: I can’t blame anyone for disliking them. Except Lockjaw, who is, in fact, a very good boy.
A-Force, Dormammu, Winter Guard, Weapon X and even unaffiliated (why?) is getting one representation each meaning only New Mutants and Sentinels of the legal affiliations for this event don’t get taken at all.
Shocking absolutely no one, classic Zemo is part of every single team. Incredibly he is the only character to achieve this. One (apparently mad) team has no Toad at all and two have no Black Cat. Shang-Chi makes him impact felt immediately with 40 takes. The good 2s are up there as is to be expected but 38 Hero Thors is quite a statement too. Of course we have 32 Asgard players and even as a Defender of OG Thor you have to be plain mad not to bring Hero Thor in affiliation. Namor is also extremely popular (and for good reason) but the consensus seems to still be on Gemless-Namor. 4 Teams don’t run Miles. Why is anyone’s guess. Beta Ray Bill, Rhino, Loki 2 and Spectacular Spidey all aren’t big surprises at their numbers. 32 Thanoses (Thanosi?) is a lot but not unexpected. Agent Venom is also taken 32 times which makes a lot of sense with a bunch of Webs and Guardians lists in the field.
Rounded out is the top 20 amazingly (hah) by ASM. Not someone I would’ve bet money on seeing this often as the general consensus on playing Webs is to play super wide at the moment. Doesn’t hurt to have him in the list of course.
You know who is strangely absent from the top 20? Hulk. Incredible.
A return to form for Jericho being used in way over half the teams. He dropped off a lot after his 2023 nerf but people are getting back to him as he is still very good. A lot of either staples of popular affiliations like Ghost-Spider or Storm or universal splashes like Lizard and Pyro in the 20-40 column. Only 27 Crimson Dynamos is shocking to me and maybe a result of the Researcher restriction.
Angela is used much more than anticipated. Also Ghost Rider made quite a lot of lists.
iHulk getting 14 uses seems pretty appropriate. Unlike with OG Hulk I don’t think every team should have one.
Gwenom sees a lot of play outside of her “home” affiliation of Midnight Sons which is interesting. I’ve seen her used very well in her actual home Web Warriors and have been impressed so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
13 classic Thors. Hurray! Also 13 Icemans who I think is greatly underrated so it’s nice to see him getting some love. 11 Ultron 2s is decent as with Age he’d be in 42 teams but this also shows that he doesn’t need the card to be worthwhile.
The bane of WTC23 and LVO24 as well as all our existences: Cosmic Ghost Rider is in 11 teams after getting the (deserved) heavy nerf.
Space Maw is also rather popular.
Nice to see Vision played. He is awesome and should be played much more than he is. Bucky 1 might have been overcorrected to the other side again where he barely makes his own affiliation. If he works he still works and Soldat Activated definitely helps him in CS and Cabal but the model AMG is struggling more with than any other to get right is still only in 9 teams. Classic Loki still lives (probably more in Cabal than Asgard).
Ulik, Black Bolt, Malekith and especially Sandman feel very underplayed to me while seeing 5 OG MODOKs both warms my heart and has me scratching my head.
5 teams double up on Zemos. With the positive press Helmut has gotten recently I would’ve expected the number to be higher.
28 players don’t run Brace. Madmen! Survival is, let’s say, quite popular after release. Unrestricted Recall is the next highest while Sacrifice, Patch Up and Fall Back all make their case for the second restricted slot. Warpath shoots up the ranking with it’s return from rotation just a few weeks ago.
Every team brings a Baron after all and only 1 doesn’t use Heroes for Hire.
The most “nothing” extract in Legacy Virus takes #1. I wouldn’t have guessed. Skrulls taking second spot is more business as usual, just like Gamma, Demons and Hammers being in the top 5.
Researcher is taken 33 times after it’s restriction. Seems healthier than before at least.
And freaking Spider-Portals is on the last place where it should be because it’s awful.
That’s it for the pre event stats. We’ll of course be back with the results after the event. See you then!
Cheers from Germany 🍻
Thanks for writing this article! Just to note that I had a very small part in getting these stats together. The bulk of the work was done by the head TO, Gil Surepi, along with each of the captains.
–Norbert