Really interesting to see Patch Up take the place of the most taken restricted card here. Im guessing this has to do with a lot of pre rotation Asgard games who liked to pick Patch Up over the currently much better liked Sacrifice and Fall Back. I am a Baron after all was the most picked character specific card, closely followed by Chi Mastery. Neither is a surprise and both are very much still staples of the meta today. Interestingly enough they both are used by characters who are meta staples even without the cards. Heroes for Hire, This is a Robbery, Cosmic Obliteration and One below all are all very strong cards on popular and good characters but seeing Journey through Limbo here is a bigger surprise because Magik only got buffed at the tail end of the half year. Shows she definitely was taken a lot before it, too (but not really as leader for New Mutants, which Shick said was the main goal for the buff). Avengers Assemble is the most taken affiliation card followed by Siege of Darkness. Midnight Sons gained a load of popularity since the end of last year and Avengers are simply always popular.
None of the top 3 should surprise anyone here. And even with his recent nerf I don't expect Toads numbers of roster inclusion to drop at all. He'll stay on the bench a bit more often and be much fairer on the board when comes out but he's still the absolute best extract focus 2 threat. Wong at 4 is a big surprise, while Black Cat, Hulk and Beta Ray Bill are great in basically every meta and are never a surprise to see in the top 10. Namors popularity has decreases somewhat since the changes to Thanos and Thor 2 but he's still often seen. Just not omnipresent anymore.
Close to 20k games in events is a great number to see and the margin between Prio and no Prio is also still very small which is a sign of great game design.
Regarding the threat we can definitely see that 17 is the most important followed by 19.
Sentinels take the red lantern (is that an idome non German speaking people understand?) with only 35% wins in their low number of games played. But of course we know the future is very bright for the mutant hunters so no reason for despair.
I usually don't really talk about unaffiliated as I always wonder why you'd ever do it but hearing how the Wills Shick and Pagani expected about a third of lists to be just that when they originally designed the game I felt I had to at least include it here in the half year stats: it's not very good 😁
Black Orders numbers are probably buffed b their performance early in the year, when Thanos wasn't yet nerfed, 15 threat and E maps were still a thing. It's definitely worse for them right now.
X-Force take the crown of the losers so to speak with a 41% win rate in close to 900 games. So while not successful they were at least still popular.
New Mutants see an uptick in play lately, since the buff to their leader Magik. Win rate hasn't picked up as much yet but as Cathal showed at the London GT they can definitely put in some work.
Winter Guard has their loyal fan base that almost got them to 400 games and they aren't as far from 50% as many would probably expect.
Hellfire Clubs play rate has dropped off a cliff since they became a real Affiliation. But keep them in the back of your mind. Shick confirmed that Emma will get a bigger update, we know Mr. Sinister is in playtest at the moment and both Shadow King and Omega Red are on the re release schedule with them (I'm predicting a HFC affiliation pack).
Over 2500 games for the X-Men, who usually sit at or at least near the top of that category. They haven't been able to reach 50% wins under any of their leaders though.
Beating the X-Men by a slot are the Brotherhood of Mutants. Despite their heavy drop off in games played earlier in the year they did get to over 1000 games played and fared decently under Magneto and a bit subpar under Mystique.
Close to 800 games for Mephisto's Legion of the Lost who haven't fully been figured out yet. More on them from me next week!
Hydra surprises with over 1000 games played. They are a tonne of fun on the board so it's very understandable.
Defenders sport no less than 2000 games and their numbers, especially under Doctor Strange will only go up in the next half year. Hopefully their win rate can catch up with their uses.
Take the other three leaders out of Cabal and Red Skull Master of the World would make it a top 10 affiliation.
Basically all of the same can be said for A-Force. But there it is more likely that people actually played leaderless (it's not even possible in Dark Dimension).
My favorite team in the comics (except the 2023 run, which I can't motivate myself to read through) and currently also on the MCP board almost got more games than the X-Men which is cool to see (and only thanks to Nova being out now. No I will not consider any counter argument on this). They do struggle in the new crisis rotation but overall stay close to 50%.
Moving over to my favorite Earth based team in Midnight Sons we see unbelievable 3500+ games, over a thousand more than X-Men which is astonishing (😉). Blade leadership alone makes up over 2k games and with only him the Affiliation would be closer to the top 5 than at 12.
Spider-Foes have been on the rise lately and are the first Affiliation here to reach the 50/50 plateau on the back of Green Goblin.
500 games played is quite a decent margin for a niche affiliation like Weapon X and especially under X-23 they were doing well, too. Loads of their wins came in the meta from the beginning of the year though where they were a good counter to the super tall attrition teams.
Asgards win rate is definitely inflated from the beginning of the year before Thor 2 was brought back in line. Their popularity hasn't decreased as much as expected though and I can definitely relate: they are just a tonne of fun to play.
Avengers take the crown in games played, which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Before X-Men often gave them a run for their money but there's a specific reason that's not as much the case anymore. Sam as usual is way more successful than the other leaders but Steve 1 and awesomely also Hulkbuster keep their rates above 50% while Mighty Steve falls just below.
Criminal Syndicate beats out both X-Men and Guardians in the games played collum and it's not even a competition in win rate. Kingpin performs as usual but the real start is Shadowland Daredevil.
Convocation is the unexpected and not very often seen affiliation that somehow made it into the top 5 on the back of their dedicated fans.
Over the half year Wakanda did very well under all three really relevant leaders. Lately Black Panther hasn't seen much success but M'Baku has been an absolute constant so far this year and King T has stepped in seamlessly when called upon.
For being really unpopular in the comics Inhumans beating out Web Warriors in games played must mean there's something there right? Yes, they are incredibly strong. Even the two alternate leaders reach above 50%.
And finally we have the reason X-Men games numbers were as "low" as they were. Scratching on the 3k games mark are the Servants of the Apocalypse, which in turn represent the most successful affiliation in the game in 2025 so far.
That's it for today.
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"Regarding the threat we can definitely see that 17 is the most important followed by 19."
ReplyDeleteWhat might be interesting is if you divide the number of instances within each threat level by the number of crises that exist of that threat level to see if there is an outmoded preference for a threat level. If that makes sense?
Yes a deep dive into which Crisis cards get taken most currently would be an interesting topic for a new post. Goes on the list of things to write, thanks for the idea Norbert 😀
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