WTC, which as I said before I sadly can't be back judging this year for multiple family related reasons (the FOMO is real), just had their list lock so let's see what people have come up with. I'll also add some of the teams that I think are in the mix for winning the tournament this year.
This year attendance is a bit down to 32 teams made up of 5 players which so 160 (I think we had 42 teams last year). That's still a whole lot of players at the world's best MCP Event.
Inhumans leading this list should not really be a surprise seeing how strong they have been for month on end right now. They also are pretty self contained, playing mostly their own affiliated models.
The same can mostly be said for Servants of the Apocalypse though they demand Toad who is a very popular splash.
Criminal Syndicate is one of the top Affiliations in the game right now, too and are so deep and offer two distinct play stiles usually but in Teams you could even risk Kingpin not having a secondary leader when you're confident you can protect him from any Pay to Flip matches.
Avengers are also great in a team format as they are so deep that almost regardless of what the rest of the team is playing there's still a good Avengers list able to be built.
I'm kind of surprised Midnight Sons isn't even higher on the list. Blade led they are a top tier Affiliation and once aren't too reliant on splashes though Red Skull 2 is extremely popular there and also in:
Wakanda, which I'm sure would be played even more often if King T was available in any form cheaper than 100€ with basically unusable terrain and a nice looking but underwhelming Killmonger Usurper.
Guardians of the Galaxy being in every third team is a bit of a surprise though in teams getting them a good matchup is definitely easier. They absolutely need Bill to function but are otherwise very self contained making the team composition easier.
X-Men mostly fight for models with Apocalypse but you can probably run both in your team and still be fine.
Asgard, who led the list last year with E maps and unnerfed Thor 2 still in the game, remains pretty popular.
Due to the lack of availability the new Web Warriors boxes have been ruled out for WTC and their numbers show it.
Last year Spider-Foes were very popular but with pretty terrible results. Their numbers dropped significantly this year.
Defenders I would have expected to be way higher personally. But having so many Midnight Sons who really want Doctor Strange in their list now is probably the reason for the low number.
Dormammu is purely used as a splash Affiliation as is the stile at the moment and Cabal, Convocation and SHIELD aren't played enough in my opinion.
No players for Black Order, Brotherhood, Hellfire, Sentinels and Thralls of Dracula is pretty fair and expected.
Sadly no German flag again. Maybe we'll get a team together next year or at least a bit more likely I can be back judging. The UK showing up in force and as is Sweden (which is just a train 30 min train ride away). A good showing for most European countries this year but US and Canada are down in numbers a bit.
Somehow Baron Zemo and Shang-Chi aren't in every team. Mind blowing that none of five lists wanted them. Most other characters here are staples in competitive singles lists and their factions with Red Skull, Master of Hydra maybe being a little bit of a surprise but as I said above both Midnight Sons and Wakanda love running him. Lockjaw has really cemented his spot in the Inhuman rosters apparently and Rhino is nowadays probably mostly a Kingpin guy.
I genuinely think 24 Black Bolts are too few. It matches the amount of Inhumans players exactly and I think he should be considered as a splash more personally. I used to run him in MODOK Criminals for the Pierce synergy at it was a lot of fun.
I would have expected Luke Cage to be firmly in the top 20 but many teams decided against him.
Way more iHulks than Midnights Sons players is unusual but he is a good consolation price if you couldn't get regular Hulk.Only 20 Namors feels low to me but I have to face him a lot so maybe I'm a bit biased here.
Only 18 Steve 1s but 24 Sams means not every Avengers player is playing classic Steve which is interesting. Sam had the highest win rate of any leader in the game by a large margin so it's understandable.
16 Shadowland Daredevils means some Criminals players either went with solo Kingpin, MODOK or potentially Legion of the Lost.
Thor 1 gets some of the credit he dersvers finally with 15 roster slots and Ghost-Spider has gotten back into some rosters as a splash, even beating out Lizard.
I personally would have expected a lot more Abominations but 10 is still a good amount.
Two Guardians players are just objectively wrong to not have Nova in their list.
Medusa, who used to be an every game model before their latest box has mostly fallen out of favour in Inhumans with very low numbers compared to the amount of players for the affiliation.
King Black Bolt on the other hand is purely used as a splash and has found some homes.
Having just played him in my Guardians yesterday I can't understand how Pyro, who used to be everywhere in the Kaiju meta, is so low on the list. Sure his prime targets aren't seen in the game as much anymore but there's still a tonne of Hulk, iHulks and Abombs for example and his cheap and effective steal TTC come on top of his reliable power generation and above average damage output (for a 3).
As you can see TTCs aren't limited to once per team and thus four madmen have decided against Brace in their list. Recal is almost everyone's 10th card and Sacrifice clearly won the battle for most used Restricted card (other than Brace) the rest is pretty as expected: high numbers for staple affiliation and character cards.
Crisis Cards also aren't limited to once per team and we see a very even spread here with Cubes being a surprise last played even after Terrigen Canisters.
And now some teams I think you should look for:
First of I have to shout out my Austrian friends (and Podcast co-host for Mario and Stefan), with whom I spend most of my free time at the event last year. They are all strong players and even went to the finals in 23 and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them as high again! (No pressure guys 😜)
Pork Roll Protocol returns with the same people on the roster and are poised to another strong finish.
The Montreal Shark Tank led by Vodkablitz, who I had the absolute pleasure of talking to last year, has a couple of US boys filling up their ranks but both of those are known strong tournament players so the talent average certainly hasn't dropped. They were a top 8 team last year and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them there again this year.
ATB Jaime leads Weapon Flex which took second place at Nations. They are more of a sleeper pick maybe but I would absolutely not surprised if they did well.
The team formerly know as Sweden Good under Steve has definitely already won the name game. They are also absolute top favorites in the tournament once again.
Polands most serious team is definitely a threat to be reckoned with.
Italy Maestro, the winners the 24 WTC, return to defend their title. Anyone facing them is in for a rough ride.
And finally my personal pick to win the event, which admittedly isn't a super hot take is England 51% affiliated sporting 5 of the UKs strongest players and last year's second place.
That's it for today.
Cheers from Germany 🍻
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