Every Safe grab in MCP

 

Today we take a look at every option for safe grabs in the game. But first we must clarify two things: 

1. What is a safe grab? 

The term is used to describe a character being able to interact (pick up) an extract objective token from the midline and move back to (relative) safety. 

2. I about 500% sure I'm going to miss at least five possible safe grabs here so absolutely reach out if you notice one I've missed and I'll add it to list immediately. 

Just like with the Steals in this article, there's different types of safe grabs in the game: 

1. Natural safe grabs 

One important thing that these three characters share which isn't obvious from their stat cards but which makes them natural safe grabs is their base size which for these three is 50mm each. Combined with their Long movement that's enough to reach the midline in one move, pick up an extract and move again. 

2. Interact from Range 2

Not nearly as safe as picking up and moving again but being able to pick up an Extract from range 2 is already a lot safer than having to stand on the midline. Toad currently is the only character that can do it turn one. Ms. Marvel can do it in Embiggend Form but there's no way you can achieve that early enough. 

3. Characters under the leadership Bump In The Night

Blades Bump in the Night enables a lot of characters to be safe grabs. 

Every character with either: 

- A small base and Long movement 

- A medium base and medium movement 

- A large base and any kind of movement 

And 

- multiple power during their first activation 

Is turned into a safe grab. 

Examples here are Nova, Beta Ray Bill, Immortal Hulk, Hela, Abomination, the Wrecking Crew and many more. Also Baron Zemo when he uses the card I Am A Baron Afterall 

And there's one special one in Blade Midnight Sons. The cheapest safe grab available: 

When he as access to Bump in the Night and if he triggered Who's A Good Boy, Lockjaw can use his first action to teleport himself straight forward and then use Bump to reach the midline, pick up the objective and spent his second action moving backwards. 

4. Characters under the Freedom Force, A Day Unlike Any Other, Flames of the Faltine or King of the Inhumans leadership 

Mystiques Leadership allows some characters to move twice, pick up the extract, get a power back and then use a superpower move or place to get back to safety. The characters need a superpower that they could normally pay for with the power they have in their first activation. 

In faction that is Juggernaut, who moves, gains two power for it, moves again, picks up the extract, gets a power refunded through the leadership and then uses Nothing Stops The Juggernaut so slide backwards. 

Examples outside of the Brotherhood would be Cable, Hulk, iHulk and Ancient One. 

Nightcrawler and Magik can only place backwards in range 1, but that's still not directly on the midline anymore and thus already at least a bit safer. 

Edit: exactly the same characters can do the same thing under either Steve 1 Avengers, under Dormammu or BB1 Inhumans leadership (in the latter someone has to pass them a power during their activation) 

5. Juggernaut under the From the Ashes leadership 

This one is a bit tricky. Juggernaut (see him above) needs to move once, gain the additional power and then use Nothing Stops The Juggernaut to push himself to the midline extract and he needs to destroy a piece of terrain on his way to get a power from the leadership. If you can manage that and end the slide in range 1 to the midline extract you can use the power gained from the leadership to pick it up and then use Juggs second action to move backwards. Juggernaut is the only character that can do it in your very first turn of the game. You could do a similar turn with Rhino and The Wrecking Crew but you'd need to feed them two power from the leadership before their activation starts. 

5. Characters under the X-Men Gold leadership 

This is once again a bit more complicated. 

Basically the same characters as with Blades leadership can be turned into safe grabs here but deployment and positioning are a lot more important. It helps to have some affiliated 50mm base models like Beast in the Squad for your chosen safe grabber to jump off of further. 

There's a lot more nuance of what all can be achieved by it and if you want to learn more I'd like to recommend Vodkablitz' excellent MCP First Class blog, that has no less than 7 articles dedicated to X-Men extract plays. 

6 . Characters using affiliation specific TTCs

There are two Affiliation specific TTCs stand stand out as enabling safe grabs. One is very straightforward, the other a bit more complicated. 

It might not always be the best use of the card, but every Avengers affiliated character that has multiple power in their first activation can move once, spent 1 power to play the card, grab the extract and then spend their second action moving backwards. 

Currently this applies to Cable; Hulkbuster; Hulk; She-Hulk; Thor, Prince of Asgard and Iron Fist. 

On Extracts with multiple objectives on the midline you could also play the card with multiple of the eligible characters. That way you can force your opponent to act and punish that or if they are scared of your already moved up model you might end up with a second safe grab. 

To Me My X-Men used to safe grab follows a similar philosophy but works a bit different in practice. The good thing is, that it turns every single affiliated X-Men into a safe grab. The way it works is that you simply double move to the midline and then one of your characters with an Uncanny X-Men leadership ability pays a power for the safe grabbing character to move backwards towards them. 

And once again there's a lot more nuance of what all can be achieved by it and if you want to learn more I'd like to shout out Vodkablitz' excellent MCP First Class blog, again. 

7. The Cat and The Spider

Peter Parker has to deploy opposite the extract and then Black Cat can use her first action to move to range 2 straight in front of Peter. The two then play the card and Cat uses her second action to move backwards. 

8. Characters with the Space Gem

Both carriers of the Space Gem (and it would also work with Thanos either in Black Order or when he has two Gems) can also be turned into safe grabs through the total amount of power they have in their first activation and the place from the Gem. 

9. Sibling Rivalry 

Probably not the best way to use the card but it can be set up exactly like The Cat and The Spider and since Loki natively has 2 power he can still grab the extract and advance backwards. 

10. Passing back the Extract under the Illicit Network leadership 

Here you need a character that can have three power when arriving at the midline, so that should be Nova, Supreme Strange, Juggernaut, Hulk and iHulk I think. You deploy a 50mm base model, Kingpin himself for example, right in front of the extract, then use your 3 power model to get that extract and then use the Kingpin leadership to throw it back to the model in the deployment zone. 

11. Hulk and iHulk under World Domination leadership, on special shapes

Here you need either Hulk or Immortal Hulk and the crisis setup has to involve either a D secure and a center line extract or an E extract (currently that would only be Montessi). Since the leadership triggers in the first power phase of you have your (i)Hulk deployed in Range 1 of the D/E point closet to you he gains an additional power and can thus walk twice, leap once and pick up in his first activation m 

And these are all the ones I could think of. Thanks to everyone who has added some I've personally missed. As said above please add any you think I missed in the comments or tell me about them in my new Discord Server and if you want to get access to some special channels you could consider supporting me at patreon.com/sgprotocol 

Shout-outs to: kollar, DeckardPa1n, kw_walker, MisterCorbeau, LSPzee, Totally-TWilkins, Vathar, CodeMonkeyLikesYou and chickenfstherdeluxe for adding to the list. 

Cheers from Germany 🍻