Entering the Spider-Verse

 

Who doesn't love Spider-Man? Ever since day one, Peter Parker has had a place in Marvel Crisis Protocol, and as of the writing of this article he currently has four places across Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man, and Spider-Man Noir. That's a lot of Spider-Men! Some might say... too many Spider-Men?

As the game has gone on, he's become only a small part of an entire affiliation of Spider People in the Web Warriors, which have sometimes been seen as extremely strong and rarely out of the meta entirely. Once upon a time, there was a perception in the community that the Web Warriors were 'solved' as a faction. 

I don't think that was ever actually as true as people thought, but now that we have had two new boxes with five new Web Warriors and a raft of new tactics cards bringing them up to 20 characters and 23 character restricted or Web Warriors affiliated tactics cards, the number of ways you can play the affiliation has exploded in possibility before even starting to look at out of affiliation options.

As a huge fan of Into the Spider-Verse (which in my opinion is the best superhero movie ever made) I'm really excited by this. I'm never really that interested in approaching an affiliation where it feels as though the optimal lines of play are very narrow; I like to find interesting niches and ways to use pieces that my opponents are unlikely to have encountered as often as a well-trod path. I feel like that keeps the games fresh and interesting on both sides of the table.

There's a good chance that Web Warriors wind up being my pet project throughout the year because there really is such depth to the roster, and there isn't a single piece in there that I can't see some use for. Let's run through where my head is at in terms of the possibilities on the table, beginning with... leaderships!

Miles Morales: 



There have been some quiet hints that 3 threat Miles might be getting an errata to nerf him because he is such an incredible character in his own right. That change might hit his leadership, but if it doesn't they'd have to work really hard to take him out of consideration.

This leadership is the most generally applicable, adding a defensive reroll to all characters and unlocking skulls for rerolls on attack and defense so long as the character is playing towards the objectives of the game.

This has historically been one of my favourite leaderships for running my favourite characters; original Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl all become so much stronger when they don't need to worry about skulls blocking their rerolls, and they all really like the additional defensive reroll as well.

I've never really pushed this leadership to the max, but now Web Warriors have an affiliated two threat you can easily run an 8 threat core and bring in characters who have reroll bubbles and/or the ability to add attack and defense dice and they can suddenly do a lot more work. Whilst a fully affiliated Miles roster can still do a ton of work, I think this is the leadership which rewards experimentation the most.

Amazing Spider-Man: 



Whilst he's always had his proponents, the Amazing Spider-Man leadership has been difficult to make work in the past because it costs power and the power economy of Web Warriors has historically been delicate.

However! The theme of the new releases was to give Peter a bunch of characters who can put out slow, which makes the leadership much easier to work with, and some characters (like Silk) who generate power really well.

I'm also seeing a lot more ways for opposing teams to mess with the pushes and throws that Web Warriors use to win the positional game, but there are very few things in the game which prevent leadership effects, so I can see this being a relevant thing to have access to. Not to mention that Amazing Spider-Man himself is a very tough, very fast character who makes everyone else around him tankier and can fully justify his place in your roster all on his own. I think you can easily build a whole gameplan around this now.

Web of the Spider-Verse: 

  

The newest leadership and the one which opens up a completely unique ability for the Web Warriors (at time of writing) where your opponent simply cannot remove your leadership from the game because it isn't attached to a character!

At the moment I think this leadership might be a little bit overpowered; I've heard some really wild stories about the number of size 1 places that a character can get in an activation if they roll skulls consistently, but even if it does get 'nerfed' down to being just once per activation, I think this still remains a very interesting leadership that makes the Web Warriors feel very much like Spider-People! Jumping all over the table, staying highly mobile and making up plans on the fly in response to the situations as they develop.

This is also undoubtedly the leadership which encourages playing affiliated more than the other two; it simply does not apply to any splashes you might be bringing in, which I love and may be a balancing factor even if it doesn't get nerfed because you're sacrificing a lot of flexibility and one of the incredible tactics cards Web Warriors get access to in order to bring this effect to the table.

Hopefully you can see how all three of those leaderships can lean into different directions. I expect that I'll be doing more in-depth character writeups as I get more games in, but I'd like to just give a single sentence summary of where I feel all the Web Warriors I didn't touch on above have their place.

Agent Venom: Great in the mirror match and can bring a huge amount of damage.
Black Cat: Consistently one of the best 3 threats, able to steal and stagger.
Daredevil: A very mobile counterattack character who can punish tight crises.
Ghost-Spider: Displacement and protection for your other characters in a 3 threat character.
Gwenom: Very mobile, can pack a real punch and punish your opponent for not hitting her.
Moon Knight: Range 4 with stealth makes him a great back point guard and sometimes he randomly pops off. If he gets lucky, under the Web of the Spider-Verse, he can get 4 range one places in a single activation.
Scarlet Spider: Huge amounts of displacement in one efficient package.
Silk: Easy power generation, displacement and slow. She's a real gamechanger.
Silver Sable: Loves the extra power gen from Masked Menace and can boost your other characters for key moments.
Spectacular Spider-Man: Solid displacement and mobility with a card-based safe grab with Black Cat.
Spider-Ham: Affiliated 2 threat that can annoy people with Shock and play the secure game well.
Spider-Man (Peter Parker): Crazy potential displacement if it all lines up (up to 4 short pushes vs a size 2)
Spider-Man 2099: Best in-affiliation beater and potentially very hard to put down.
Spider-Man Noir: One of the few characters in affiliation that is happy to sit on a point and throw hands.
Spider-Woman: Extra VP generation if you're beating up the bad guys, also energy attacks!
Ultimate Spider-Man: Mobile and annoying to fight, perfect Web Warrior.
Venom: A third counterattack character and brings a great tactics card to force the issue.

So there we go! That's my current MCP obsession. I've still got a few more Powerscaling articles to write up from my foray with Brotherhood, but I hope none of my regular readers have arachnophobia.

HONK!