Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament report: Magnificent March! 23Mar2024

This month’s Marvel Crisis Protocol tournament was a bumper event with 34 players coming from across Scotland and the north of England to roll dice and push dollies. It’s a sign of the strength of the community that we can get that kind of turnout for a regular event without it even having to be some kind of special, and particularly a testament to Allan’s hard work to get us to this point. Unscientifically, I think that must make MCP one of the bigger tournament scenes in Scotland – perhaps only behind the behemoth that is GW’s game stable. Akos kindly gave Gareth and me a ride to Common Ground Games in Stirling.

I’ve been tinkering with a few options for rosters but chose to stick with Inhumans, partly because I find them engaging and fun, partly because their playstyle is good for my strengths and mainly because I’m going to play them for a team event in April and it would be awkward to change now and force everyone else to mess with their own rosters. I think that this is exactly the same roster I played in the February event; I guess if it’s not broken I shouldn’t fix it.

Characters (10)
* Black Bolt (5)
Crystal (3)
Medusa (4)
Ms. Marvel (3)
Quicksilver (3)
* Crimson Dynamo (4)
Toad (2)
* Captain America (Sam Wilson) (3)
Rhino (4)
Beast (3)

Team Tactics (10)
Brace for Impact (R)
Sacrifice (R)
Can I Borrow That?
Eyes on the Prize
Fall Back
Inhuman Royal Family
Mission Objective
Terrigenesis
Smash
This is a Robbery

Secure Crisis
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest (E, 15)
Demons Downtown! Has Our Comeuppance Come Due? (E, 19)
Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse (C, 19)

Extract Crisis
Research Station Attacked! (E, 15)
Alien Ship Crashes In Downtown! (C, 17)
Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? (C, 19)

Game 1: Euan playing Spider Foes

I’ve seen Euan at loads of these events but somehow I think that we’ve never actually managed to get a game. I win priority and pick my Secures since I don’t fancy any of Euan’s at all; he chooses the slightly lower threat value. I decide to go with Crystal in this matchup even though it’s too easy for Euan to get rid of the conditions she hands out using Doc Ock’s leadership; I figure that being fast and annoying might be enough for her to shine; in retrospect I think that Ms Marvel might have been a better option. Captain America gets a nod as he’s fast and can push small people around, although actually that’s just limited to Doc Ock himself as it turns out. I also add in Rhino as he loves the Black Bolt leadership to get rolling in round one while also being an amazing battery to share power to others in later rounds. I’m also planning to be annoying with This Is A Robbery.

Extraction: Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership
Secure: Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse
Threat: 19
My team: Black Bolt, Crystal, Medusa, Captain America, Rhino
My cards: Brace For Impact, Eyes On The Prize, Sacrifice, Terrigenesis, This Is A Robbery
Euan’s team: Doc Ock Sinister Scientist, Lizard, Rhino, Crimson Dynamo, Ultron Metal Tyrant
Euan’s cards: Age Of Ultron, Brace For Impact, Sinister Traps, This Is A Robbery, X-Ceptional Healing

Round 1: Euan plays Sinister Traps on my near Skrull. My plan is to make a safe steal on the right and then force Euan to either ‘waste’ Rhino’s activation by sitting on that point anyway or move further than he wants to join the scrum in the middle where I intend to use him as a Master Punch bowling ball. Captain America plays Eyes On The Prize, takes a power from Black Bolt then retreats to relative safety. Doc Ock takes the left Skrull and Crystal bounces off him effectively after giving a power to Medusa. She uses Royal Decree to move Rhino forward, triggering the Sinister Trap but backstopping him from being pushed anywhere too offensive while also giving him a bit of spare power. I had to land someone on it, so it might as well be my tankiest character. Medusa also moves up to collect another Skrull and Crimson Dynamo moves in to pick up the last one. Black Bolt tickles him ineffectively before Ultron smacks an uncomfortable number of wounds into Medusa. My Rhino bounces off Crimson Dynamo twice before playing This Is A Robbery to hoof him out of my face, though sadly his failure to hurt Dynamo with his attacks means that I didn’t have enough power to actually pick up the Skrull so the score goes to 3 – 2 to me. We also realised at the end of the round that we’d completely forgotten to roll and find out if our characters got moved by the Skrulls.

Round 2: I’m locked into opening with Medusa here as otherwise I’m pretty sure that Ultron dazes her. If I can pick up a third Skrull, specifically the one lying at Rhino’s feet, then I can start to collapse toward one flank or the other and make Euan fight me with a reduced team. Medusa opens us up with some amazing rolls, throwing Lizard into Crimson Dynamo to daze the latter, then pushing away both Ultron and Lizard and dazing Lizard to boot. Good work, your highness! The Drones hurt Captain America and Ultron throws Rhino into Black Bolt with his Spender, dazing Medusa in the process with Explosive Force. Black Bolt manages to throw Ultron off the point but otherwise achieves very little. Doc Ock dazes Crystal and jumps through the Portal. I’m not sure why he did this as it meant that the Skrull went on the deck so Euan – if you’re reading maybe you can remind me what you had in mind here please? Captain America decides that he doesn’t like the look of Rhino and switches to the left side, doing precisely nothing with his shield on the way. Euan’s Rhino begins a hilarious run of bad luck with the Portals, failing two jumps in a row and ending up further away from my team that he started before slogging back in the direction of the rest of the fight. My Rhino hurts Doc Ock but can’t daze him. The score is 6 – 5 to me.

Round 3: I’ve been lucky with Rhino staying out of the fight but I need to start dazing some of Euan’s characters here. In particular I want to get rid of Crimson Dynamo and Lizard as they’ve already been dazed. Attacking Ultron is likely to be a waste of time but I might have no choice but to fight him if he gets parked somewhere awkward. Ultron gets us underway by KOing Medusa. I use Rhino who mostly just inconveniences Crimson Dynamo but Crystal does get to play Terrigenesis and daze Doc Ock which is a very handy couple of VPs to have. Lizard collects the Skrull on the far left and Sam tries to huck him off with Redwing Assault but fails to do any damage; Crystal will later on just randomly KO him out of nowhere! In the meantime, Crimson Dynamo applies Shock to my Rhino (and somewhere in here I remember about Ornery and Rhino starts swimming in power). Then Euan’s Rhino fails the Portal roll again and eventually pokes mine, pokes Crystal and plays This Is A Robbery; to add insult to injury Captain America blocks all the incoming damage from having Crystal thrown at him. The score moves to 10 -7 in my favour.

Round 4: We’re about even on attrition but I’m doing just fine on the score so my plan is to continue to work over Euan’s team and reduce his options for scoring; I need to remove at least one of Crimson Dynamo, Doc Ock or Rhino before they rampage through my team. Black Bolt uses Whisper but frustratingly can only manage 1 damage between Ultron and Crimson Dynamo; he follows it up with a Master Punch that does at least drop Crimson Dynamo but Ultron survives the collision on one. I guess I can’t complain too much about that after Captain America’s dodge roll last turn. Ultron dazes my Rhino by throwing him into Black Bolt. Captain America goes for a Redwing Assault into Doc Ock and fails to do damage again (I just needed one damage to get the throw!) but does at least plink the final damage into Ultron; in retrospect I saw red a bit here and would have been better off leaving him where he was and dazing him next turn. Doc Ock does take Captain America’s final point of damage after his extraordinary run of luck deserts him at last; Crystal is able to collect the fallen Skrull and Incinerates Rhino. Rhino fails another tow jumps through Portals and then can’t do substantial damage to Crystal either. We go up to 11 – 8 to me after a rather bloody round of fighting.

Round 5: Unless Ultron has an insane activation (and he needs to move to score at all) I think I can finish this out simply by running away with Captain America and Crystal if needed. But I do have priority so it would be rude not to get in about the Spider Foes first. Rhino throws some terrain at Doc Ock to KO him, then Stampedes and rolls an absolutely insane spike to one-shot Rhino. He rather sheepishly walks to sore the right point after that, I wasn’t expecting to get another go with him! Ultron gets revenge, KOing both Black Bolt and Crystal before Captain America runs for the corner with a Skrull safely in his grasp. The score is 15 – 9 so we call it there. Euan has no way to catch Captain America so I would definitely get over the line before he could score up to 16 himself, especially with only two characters of his own in play.

What a brutal game! We both clearly came loaded for bear and we got exactly what we were looking for. It was a pleasure to finally get a game into Euan and I hope for many more. I got pretty lucky in some parts, especially with Medusa going crazy at the start of round 2 and Captain America somehow surviving at the end of round 3. But overall I think that I was quite happy with my positioning, and I was able to make sure that Ultron had to choose between scoring points or fighting me which I think is his biggest weakness.

Game 2: Liam playing Cabal

Suddenly it’s really serious! Liam is the best player in Scotland, and one of the best in the entire world; at the time of writing he’s in the semi-final of a global TTS championship. He’s also my personal nemesis at this game and I’ve never beaten him yet… although I have enjoyed my numerous failed attempts. He wins priority and chooses his Secures but actually this doesn’t matter too much as we have somewhat similar sets of Crises anyway; indeed I’m quite happy to go last and at least get one move after Thanos rearranges half of the board. My picks are my ‘standard 19 threat’ team for this Crisis combination but I do think that they match up well into Liam’s team. In particular Medusa is quite annoying for the Cabal team to deal with as they work heavily with rerolls. This game is unlikely to be about scoring, so unless I can collect two of the Extracts and retreat to camp around my back point and see out a lead, I think that this one is going to be very bloody. That said, I also can’t allow Liam to just run off with the Extracts either as he would be very pleased to have me waste actions chasing him while he picks off my team. Also it seems that in all the excitement I forgot to take a pre-game picture.

Extraction: Deadly Legacy Virus Cured?
Secure: Demons Downtown! Has Our Comeuppance Come Due?
Threat: 19
My team: Black Bolt, Crystal, Medusa, Ms Marvel, Crimson Dynamo
My cards: Brace For Impact, Fall Back, Inhuman Royal Family, Sacrifice, Smash
Liam’s team: Red Skull Master Of The World, Bullseye, Baron Zemo, Nebula, Thanos (Mind and Space gems)
Liam’s cards: Cosmic Obliteration, Dark Reign, Fall Back, I Am A Baron After All, Recalibration Matrix

Round 1: I want to play cautiously as Liam will be able to use Thanos to reel in any character that I put even slightly far forward. On the other hand, I do have to take part in the game so I can’t just sit back and let him have everything. Since I’m not expecting score to be a major factor here, I decide that I won’t make any big effort to sit on the Secures so that I at least won’t get Incinerate. Bullseye takes the right Extract and Ms Marvel goes on the left. Red Skull just sits on the back point, comfortable in the knowledge that I’m not likely to get near him anytime soon! Crystal throws an attack at Bullseye who uses Parting Shot to retreat to safety; this was expected but occasionally Crystal can land an outsize punch. Thanos uses his various reposition tools to bring Ms Marvel across to Liam’s side of the board as expected; Nebula later dazes her and Zemo collects the Extract. Over on my side, Black Bolt hands power to Crimson Dynamo and Medusa across the round and just moves up for next round, Crimson Dynamo puts Shock on Thanos which should make my life a bit easier and Medusa picks up the final Extract. We are at 3 – 2 to Liam.

Round 2: I’m almost certain to lose Ms Marvel here, probably to Zemo, so I need to make sure that I’m not falling too far behind on attrition. Depending on order of activation I can probably take out two of Bullseye, Nebula and Zemo (although I think he’ll probably retreat to safety before I can get to him) which does carry the risk of the improved Death’s Decree but I need to get them at some point. Zemo plays I Am A Baron, After All then KOs Ms Marvel with Master Swordsman and help from Death’s Decree; he also tickles Crimson Dynamo before retreating. Black Bolt pays for Inhuman Royal Family (hurrah, I actually remembered to play it!) and hurts Thanos quite heavily. Thanos plays Fall Back to avoid the risk that Black Bolt drops him so early and so the king dazes Nebula instead. Red Skull hurts Crimson Dynamo and gives him a taste of his own medicine – Shock! Crystal dazes Bullseye and collects his token. Liam passes so Crimson Dynamo puts a bit of damage into Red Skull, and returns the favour by giving him Shock too. Thanos uses the Mind Gem to move Crimson Dynamo away, Cosmic Portals Black Bolt into range and starts punching him. Medusa pushes Red Skull off the point and throws Thanos into Zemo. The score goes to 5 – 4 to me.

Round 3: That last turn went quite well but I’m going to get bodied by Nebula followed by Zemo assisted by Death’s Decree, and Dark Reign in the latter case. I’m going to have give some ground here and hope that making Liam use walk actions to come after me will spread his team out a bit. Nebula goes into first Medusa then Black Bolt but leaves both alive, albeit with Stun. I get to make an activation I hadn’t expected as Black Bolt puts a Master Punch into Thanos, dazing Zemo with the throw. I decide that I’m losing him anyway this turn (and I don’t mind too much getting Black Bolt dazed) and follow this up with a builder into Thanos. I roll well and Liam rolls poorly so he uses Recalibration Matrix but it doesn’t get much better and Thanos is dazed. This is huge as it means that I don’t have to worry about Cosmic Portal any more, although obviously Death’s Decree is still going to be a huge concern. Red Skull plays Cosmic Obliteration to clear his conditions and gives Hex to Medusa and Incinerate to Black Bolt; he dazes Medusa and collects her token. Crystal and Bullseye trade shots on the right and Crimson Dynamo dazes Red Skull. In retrospect I wonder if I’d have been better off going after Nebula with him. We go to 7 – 4 to me.

Round 4: I need to deal with Zemo and Nebula once the former has had his way with me. Hopefully I can get the drop on Bullseye with Crystal too, though she’s badly hurt and I risk losing her to Parting Shot if I’m not careful. Zemo pays for Dark Reign and makes short work of Black Bolt; he then collects both fallen tokens. Medusa decides to finish off Red Skull (yes, even though I just wrote that Nebula was a priority) and it does at least work and helpfully takes that horrific leadership off the table. Nebula dazes Crystal and Bullseye collects her token. Crimson Dynamo come back into the fight and chips a couple of wounds off Thanos. Thanos moves Dynamo away with his spender and Mind Gem. Liam takes the lead at 8 – 7.

Round 5: At least I have priority now, and Black Bolt is well placed to deal with Zemo who absolutely needs to die. Barring a huge roll from Nebula (and she’s too far away from Thanos for Death’s Decree) I should get to activate all my heroes this turn. Black Bolt hits Zemo with Master Punch and he helpfully rolls very badly on defence so the throw into terrain is enough to KO him. I made a mistake in doing the throw first as it meant that Black Bolt was too far away to pick up any of the tokens. Instead he just zaps a bunch of damage into Thanos. Thanos goes next, pushing Black Bolt away into irrelevance and collecting those two Extracts while moving to score the back Secure. Crystal has one of those turns where the dice just work and she KOs both Nebula and Bullseye. There is only Thanos left now so Crimson Dynamo puts a couple more damage into him, then Medusa uses Royal Decree to move into range and KOs the Mad Titan. The game ends at 8 – 8 but with a win for me due to a table wipe.

Wow, what a game. I was helped enormously by my dice which were probably a bit better than average and especially by Liam’s defence dice which were truly awful. Still, my record against Liam is now won: 1 lost: 1000 so I will take whatever I can get under the circumstances. I made some significant target choice errors, notably letting Nebula have way more activations than I should have done and I played needlessly recklessly by targeting Red Skull in round 4. I thought at the time that this low score would really hinder my chances overall but actually the first tiebreaker is Strength Of Schedule so it probably wasn’t relevant.

Game 3: Allan playing X-Men

Allan’s moved onto playing X-Men after a month-long reign of terror with Dark Dimension but I think that he’s still feeling his way around this roster. That said, Allan is a strong player and I’ll have to be careful not to just let him score all the points and win before I get rolling. Fortunately I win Priority and choose to use my Secures so I don’t have to worry about X-Men pay-to-flip nonsense; he chooses the slightly hight threat value. I decide to just go with the same team as I used against Euan in game one, and for largely the same reasons. With two long movers, Eyes On The Prize and the Inhumans leadership I’m well positioned to have a safe grab on one side of the board and then fight whoever Allan chooses on the other side. Captain America is much happier here with more than just a single size 2 character to push around!

Extraction: Paranoia Pummels Populace!
Secure: Intrusions Open Across City As Seals Collapse
Threat: 19
My team: Black Bolt, Crystal, Medusa, Captain America, Rhino
My cards: Brace For Impact, Eyes On The Prize, Inhuman Royal Family, Sacrifice, This Is A Robbery
Allan’s team: Cyclops, Bishop, Colossus, Jean Grey, Toad
Allan’s cards: Brace For Impact, First Class, Patch Up, To Me My X-Men, Xavier’s Dream

Round 1: Allan is playing a ‘fair’ game of MCP, and I’m not because I can steal one of his Extracts with Rhino. So my plan is to safely take the left Extract with Captain America, then use Crystal to attack Cyclops when he inevitably collects the one on the right. The position of that sign (which, to be clear, is not see-through because of the way that terrain works in this game) means that he’ll have to expose himself to my attacks if he wants it. Then I’ll just steal a central token with Rhino and cackle all the way to a round one lead. Captain America plays Eyes On The Prize, takes a power from Black Bolt then steals the left Extract and comes back to safety. Toad takes one of the central tokens to my great surprise, so Crystal gratefully picks up the one on the right while Black Bolt hands another power to Medusa. Colossus strides into the centre and gets the last Extract before Black Bolt comes up and one-shots Toad. Ouch! Cyclops just double walks to the middle so Medusa uses Royal Decree on Rhino then sashays forward and collects the token that Toad dropped after taking another of her king’s power. Bishop walks up to stand on the left Secure. Rhino gets stuck into Colossus, leaving him on a single wound after I use This Is A Robbery and Allan uses both Brace For Impact and Xavier’s Dream. Cyclops plays To Me My X-Men to move Jean forward, then she double walks to the centre and throws Medusa off the point. The score is 5 – 1 to me.

Round 2: Well that went better than I could possibly have dreamed. I guess I just want to keep on working over Allan’s team since I’m already holding all of the Extracts. Medusa starts us off by hitting Jean. She triggers the Flurry which Colossus tanks, then throws Colossus into Jean to daze both of them. Her final attack leaves Toad on one wound; he uses Slippery to get to safety. Cyclops zaps a few wounds off Crystal and Captain America Charges on to the left Secure, KOing Toad (I wasn’t keeping Priority anyway so I might as well make this good) and hurting Bishop a little. Bishop pumps a couple of shots into Captain America, Incinerating him and throwing him, so Rhino dazes Bishop too. Crystal pushes Cyclops off the right Secure. The score goes to 13 – 1 to me.

Round 3: Hmm, this is basically over already; I could pretty much just run for the corners and still win before Allan caught me up. But where is the fun in that? Bishop starts us off with a fully powered up Return With Interest on Captain America and Rhino but Allan’s rolls continue to be awful and he achieves nothing substantial. Medusa KOs Jean, finishing her off by throwing Colossus into her again. The big metal chap slaps some tasty damage into Black Bolt. Over on the right, Crystal plays a dangerous game with Cyclops who pays for Quick Draw on all three attacks and finally I roll low and she goes down to the return damage; still, he’s slow, on one wound and not on the Secure so I’m not too worried. Not only that, but since he only has one wound he can’t even pick up the Extract. Allan makes an extremely cool play where Cyclops hops through the Portals, gets patched up for one (!) by Colossus, generates a bit of power, hops back through the Portal and picks up the Extract. In any normal game we would have just called it there but at this point I was still thinking that score differential would be a relevant tie breaker and want to rack up the best score I can manage. So Captain America and Rhino team up to drop Bishop and Black Bolt hops through the Portal to daze Cyclops and pick up the final Extract again, scoring us out at 21 – 1.

That was probably the most ridiculous game of MCP I’ve ever played. Allan’s always been a very variable player, clinically beating top players in one game and then making catastrophic misplays the next, and so I guess I should be glad that I got the latter kind of game. There’s probably not much to be learned from my side (except that I was needlessly greedy with Crystal, but the game was already over by then anyway) as Allan just kindly walked into my attacks and didn’t do very much to mitigate them. That his dice were totally rancid just rubbed salt into his wounds. Sorry Allan!

Game 4: Stephen playing Brotherhood Of Mutants

I’m delighted to find myself playing Stephen in the last game as he criminally underrates himself and so going 3 – 0 up to this point might finally remind him how good he is. I’m also pleased because we’re good friends and I know that this will be a chill game despite nominally being a high-pressure finals. To give an example of what I mean, Stephen initially revealed an unaffiliated roster which was obviously not his intention so he went back and swapped a character; later in the game he let me change a decision I’d made even after rolling dice on another unrelated action. Stephen wins Priority and chooses his Extractions but we’re quite similar on Crises so I think it probably doesn’t matter too much. One of the flaws of this roster is not being able to go down to 3-wide at 15 threat, but the upside is that at least I’ll be able to move a character after Hulk rearranges the whole board state each turn. I think that we’re pretty much locked into just fighting here so I need to drop at least one of Stephen’s characters as soon as possible just to limit his options. Probably this’ll be Pyro as he has to come into my range if he wants to be relevant. Then I’m intending to pile conditions on the other two and just pour on the damage.

Extraction: Research Station Attacked!
Secure: Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest
Threat: 15
My team: Black Bolt, Crystal, Ms Marvel, Crimson Dynamo
My cards: Brace For Impact, Fall Back, Inhuman Royal Family, Sacrifice, Smash
Stephen’s team: Magneto, Pyro, Hulk
Stephen’s cards: Asteroid M, Indomitable, Inspiring Monologue, Magnetic Refraction, Pyrotechnics

Round 1: I’m going to get last activation so unless Stephen is suicidally aggressive I should be able to at least draw in the centre and avoid going down on points. We start off with cautious advances on both sides, and Stephen uses a pass. I have to commit Crimson Dynamo if I’m going to use him so he takes a power off Crystal, moves into the middle and zaps both Magneto and Pyro. He doesn’t manage to Shock either of them but Pyro is quite badly hurt which should make my life a bit easier next round. Hulk comes in and hurts Crimson Dynamo (sadly Disruption Field didn’t do enough to keep the throw off line) and hurls him into Crystal who has no power to pay for Brace and helpfully blocks nothing. Black Bolt comes forward and pays for Master Punch (taking a power off Crystal on the way, since now she has more than she’ll ever need) which throws Hulk out of the Gamma area. The score is 4 – 1 to me. I move the Researcher just off to the side so that Stephen will have to commit heavily if he wants it, but not so close to my edge that one turn would get it into ‘extra scoring’ distance.

Round 2: I expect that Pyro will come for me this turn as he’s on just one wound left so I need to deal with him. Hulk will probably go last to push me off as much stuff as possible. To my great surprise, Stephen goes with Hulk first. He gets the daze on Crimson Dynamo – I’d manage to leave him just out of bodyguard range from Black Bolt – but it takes all his actions to do it; I also Brace a throw somewhere here. Magneto puts out Magnetic Refraction, of course. Black Bolt dazes Pyro but rolls zero successes on his Master Punch so I can’t displace Hulk. Stephen takes advantage of the pass and so Crystal zaps some conditions and damage into Hulk. Magneto moves forward and pushes Ms Marvel away; she moves back and hurts him a bit and he also has to pay for Indomitable to avoid being throw away. The score goes to 7 – 2.

Round 3: Number one priority is to deal with Pyro. If I can get rid of Magneto too that would be even better; once Pyro is out of the way any displacement on Magento is like a Stagger. Stephen goes first with Hulk again. He pays for a Hulk Smash on Crimson Dynamo who gratefully plays Sacrifice so that one-wound Crystal can be pasted by it; he does still take a fair bit of damage from the second attack though. Crimson Dynamo boosts back into the fray, applying Shock to Stephen’s whole team and generating enough power that he’ll be KOed long before he stops being able to pay for Disruption field. Magneto goes for him but, thanks to Shock, isn’t able to finish off the big Russian. Ms Marvel KOs Pyro by throwing Magneto into him and Black Bolt Master Punches to send Hulk off the point again; I think I could have thrown him into Magneto but preferred to score and make him waste some power getting back into the game. The score is now 11 – 2 to me.

Round 4: Now that I have Pyro out of the way, my two plans are to displace Magneto wherever possible and to make a concerted effort to drop Hulk. Magneto drops Crimson Dynamo at last with a throw, then dazes Black Bolt. Ms Marvel Embiggens just for the movement, then fails to do much to Hulk. In retrospect I wonder if a better play was to just walk and throw Magneto, though he was well protected by his constructs to stop exactly that plan. The big green guy dazes her easily in return after throwing her at Crystal (who again blocks zero) but he can’t finish the latter and she lights him up for the KO. The score is 11 – 3 to me.

Round 5: This is over unless Magneto has an insane turn. He doesn’t, and then Black Bolt dazes him. Everyone rushes to score points before he wakes up and we finish it at 17 – 3.

That was a fun game, and far closer than the scoreline might suggest. There were a couple of moments where doing one more damage here or there would have dazed one of my characters early and caused a big swing. I think that Stephen was a bit too pessimistic about how quickly I would be able to deal with Hulk and would have been better off saving him for later in the round. Pyro basically never got to do anything substantial and my view is that he would have been a far better option for an early activation. Putting Incinerate or Root on my team would have been huge. I did really like the way that Stephen used Magneto’s constructs to stop me displacing him; hopefully it’s evident from the photos.

Once all the scores are in, I managed to get first overall. All of my opponents had excellent records too which obviously meant that my Strength of Schedule was good. If we’d have had time for another round I would have had the pleasure of a match-up with my old friend James who has travelled up, but that game will have to wait for another time now. Many thanks to Euan, Liam, Allan and Stephen for four great games of MCP, and again to Allan for masterminding the whole tournament scene and community in Scotland. I’ve got a couple of slightly unusual MCP events lined up for April and I’m already looking forward to them.