Fear Grips or Hammers as it is mostly called is a very old extract that just got a tiny chance in the 2023 crisis update. And one of the classic phrases in MCP is: "everyone is good with a Hammer" but is that actually true?
We'll look at the stats from April 2nd 2025 until today (Augst 22nd 2025), and try to find out who wants to play it and who should rather stay away from it.
As always with these we will not be covering every Affiliation just things sticking out.
Someone apparently has found a good unaffiliated build for Hammers.
The sample size is small but we can clearly see that Dark Dimension likes playing on Hammers. Dormammu can pick one up from deployment. He's even able to grab a second Hammer in turn 1 as he is fast enough to reach either side Hammer and has two power to start. Just beware that Dark Restoration becomes even more expensive to play when Dorm has one or more Hammers on him.
Apocalypse is even faster and arguably more survivable than Dorm though he lacks the second power to grab two Hammers turn one (I'm honestly also not sure that's what Dormammu should be doing anyway). Apoc is especially great at hunting enemy hammer carriers and collecting them all on himself.
Rather surprisingly Webs are pretty good on the crisis, too. It helps them to be less pillow fisted and their defenses can cope with the added damage output it gives to the enemy. I don't think they like it so much that they should bring it themselves, but they also shouldn't be sad when it gets flipped into them. With the 6 new members coming in early October that could change a lot though if Punchy Webs, with 2099, Scarlet Spider and possibly Ultimate Miles becomes a thing.
Under Blade Midnight Sons adore the crisis. They are fast, tough, durable and the added dice helps their already strong attrition. Immortal Hulk can also pick up two Hammers turn one. Beware that Siege of Darkness gets harder to play with Hammers on your characters though.
Something weird happened to the numbers for Brotherhood where around 30 games were supposed to be leaderless, which is unlikely to say the least, but it is overall a pretty good extract for the faction regardless of leader it seems.
Inhumans won't bring Fear Grips in their roster as Terrigenesis won't work on it but Quicksilver is happy to Borrow something here and the core game plan of Inhumans stays its very strong self here.
Again not a big sample size but Winter Guard seem to enjoy the crisis. Crimson Dynamo beaming with a hammer sure sounds fun.
SHIELD takes a lot of attack actions and when those have more dice it's better.
Both sides of the typical Steve 1 game plan work well here. The charge models get even scarier with additional dice on their attacks while the stacking defensive reactive superpowers soften the blow from the other side of the board.
Asgard tends to bring the crisis a lot and does see some success on it, though you should probably use Lokis or Thors leadership on it.
For Criminal Syndicate if Hammers get flipped play Shadowland Daredevil leadership it seems. His team is built around getting the maximum amount of attacks and increasing their quality makes it very strong. Kingpin on the other hand really hates the crisis. His team doesn't really make much use of the hammers, while they help the opponent get his characters to the injured side quicker.
Goblin Foes are happy about the buff to their attrition.
Malekith is able to pick up two Hammers turn one, but he isn't especially survivable anymore so it's maybe not really a winning strategy. Master of the World also lives from rate of fire in a similar style as SLDD and thus sees success on the crisis where all other Cabal leaders really struggle here.
Thralls of Dracula live from their sustain and the hammers counter that out.
Defenders have a lot of games on the crisis but with limited success. Not really sure why to be honest.
Guardians also play a lot of hammers but with very little success. Aside from Bill and maybe Nova they aren't super tough and their offense is already above average so what hammers does is really just helping the opponent catch up in output. Not a crisis I consider for my main competitive Guardians list.
Nothing really works for X-Force at the moment and hammers don't help either.
It makes a lot of sense that A-Force don't really want to see this crisis come up as it helps the enemy get through the defensive puzzle that more easily.
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