Spiders vs Robots

 

Whilst the Sentinels were designed to destroy mutants, it is probably fair to say that in Marvel Crisis Protocol they also have an unnerving habit of taking out Web Warriors as collateral damage. Your standard Sentinels are size 5 and cannot be moved by superpowers, and with the new reveals by AMG, it looks like the Sentinels affiliation is going to be increasingly defined by root and power taxing shenanigans, two things that really hurt our friendly neighbourhood spider-people.

Despite this, all is not lost! Whilst the Sentinels definitely force you to play differently, I think a well-constructed Web Warriors roster can still hold its own. It just needs to lean on some different tools to the standard gameplan. Lets talk about a few options here.

Amazing Spider-Man has been a classical answer to the size 5 problem as his leadership ability allows anyone on the team to spend a power and place the target within 1 so long as they are slow, which can nudge them off points. 

As well as being our hardest to kill character, Amazing Peter provides a bubble where he can try to mitigate opponent's triggers through Witty Banter. That's going to be important given the high number of incinerate/root triggers that Sentinels will be packing.

Admittedly, this leadership and witty banter both cost power, which is likely to be at a premium against Sentinel teams, but I still think this is worth consideration and is likely to be my go-to. I'll be amending my roster to give him back his spot just in case!

Silk has been an all-around incredible piece in almost every game I've put her on the table - and the exceptions have been because the opponent identified her as a key piece and prioritised killing her before she could ruin their plans. That's the kind of respect you want people putting on your four threats.

Against Sentinels in particular Silk benefits in two ways. Firstly her Web of the Bride means that she can reliably generate a lot of power so long as you can keep slow on the targets, which helps mitigate their power tax. I suspect Sentinels are going to want to play tight crises where everyone brawls, which also means that her fingertip spinnerets have the chance to build a lot of power reliably and fuel her slow.

Most importantly though The Spectacular Spinning Jenny is one of the few ways to just straight up move size 5 targets (and anyone else immune to being moved by superpowers) and then get herself out of danger.

Ultimate Spider-Man will likely suffer a little more than normal into Sentinels. He is a character that really wants to use his superpowers and relies on stealth, both of which they make more difficult.  

Nevertheless, he is worthy of consideration because he brings Brief Reprieve. Being able to remove the conditions that the Sentinels team are putting out or heal a point of damage team-wide, with some of the team potentially refunding the power spent on the card, may be clutch. If you're running Amazing Spider-Man's leadership over Miles' I think this becomes a much easier sell.

Daredevil doesn't see a lot of play in Web Warriors right now but I think it is worth noting that Sentinels only have Cassandra Nova as their source of mystic attacks and she is not a highly mobile piece. If he can stay away from her then (barring splash characters) he will be benefiting from his Radar Sense against the rest of the enemy squad.

Devil's Deliverance, like the Jenny, is also able to move those big size 5 characters and other pieces that are immune to superpowers. I think if you're leaning in this direction you probably wind up putting Dr. Strange in your list and having a Defenders flex to benefit from extra defense dice and potentially try to Hex your way to victory, since Dr. Strange also seems quite strong into Sentinels, but even in a Web Warriors Only gameplan he may have value if you're expecting to be able to control the matchups.

Sadly I think all my beloved symbiotes are just a terrible choice; the high prevalance of energy attacks and the power taxing will shut them down with brutal efficiency. Similarly, whilst Regular Miles is my favourite way to play the team, if you run him into Sentinels you have to be prepared for him to be taken off the board very quickly. It's hard to play wide and keep him safe when they can just ignore all his defensive tech and shut down the leadership for a round via Directive One. This is also why I don't think Miguel is the play here; whilst his spender can throw some of those characters who would otherwise be immovable and he can generate a decent amount of power, he's a 5 threat whose defensive tech is both expensive and negated at the critical moment of the game.

A lot of the matchup is going to come down to managing that Directive One round. It practically guarantees that the Sentinels will be able to outfight you whilst it is active. I think you have to assume that when it is played your job becomes to play mitigation as much as possible, with the goal of hitting back the next round with an All Webbed Up turn that can counter-punch using the energy you just got from taking a beating. That is easier said than done given the ability the Sentinels are going to have to pressure your power economy though.

Which is why I think the final piece to the puzzle is Masked Menace. 

 

This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite cards in Web Warriors, and in a matchup where the power economy is already being taxed I think it can be a real gamechanger to keep your powers and spenders online. You need to spend a power each across two or three characters to cover the board efficiently... but in the aftermath of a Directive One round I don't anticipate it being too hard to manage both that and All Webbed Up to try and swing for the fences in retaliation.

It remains to be seen how much of an impact Sentinels are going to have on the meta. It's probably fair to say they aren't one of the more popular teams in terms of lore, and it's entirely possible that most people don't want to play the power tax, debuff and grind game that they look like they will excel at. On first reading though, I think the Sentinels look like a pretty strong gameplan and it is probably worth thinking about what you can do so that you aren't eliminated by these efficient machines.

HONK!