At the end of last year I finally took the step to have myself diagnosed for ADHD and definitely not to my surprise have gotten it. This isn't a huge deal but does help me understand some of my own behavior better and try to be better about it.
How does it affect me playing and collecting MCP?
In many ways actually:
1. Collector's Fury
My doctor calls it the hobby graveyard. It's the physically hurting need to own all the options available in the game because what if that situation arises and I don't have that character in my collection? Seeing as I want to go to WTC this year and have my yearly festival in the summer (both being big events I have to spent a lot of money on) I have to cut my hobby funds shorter than in years before. So I try to make it a point not to buy just everything that comes out. But it's very hard for me.
I often feel the need to buy something and spending way too much time checking every shop daily to see if there are any sales or something like that. And I often have to reatrain myself to not buy packs again that I already own when I see them for cheap.
I check eBay at least twice a day and go through my typical five Onlineshops multiple times per week too.
2. Affiliation hopping (10 games feels like a mountain. 50 completely unreachable)
Staying with one affiliation is quite difficult for me. Getting to a 10 games Badge is quite the achievement (which is why I focus on that so much), every above that feels almost unreachable. Last year I did get to 30 with Guardians which is the most amount of games I have every played with a single Affiliation in a year. That's definitely mostly thanks to Nova being so much fun to play and the rest of the Affiliation helping with it.
I average about 60 games in a year so playing 50 of them with the same affiliation feels completely unreachable. There is just way too much stuff in this game that interests me to stay focused on a single thing. Which in turn leads to this:
3. No focus on getting good at a single Affiliation
I arguably got pretty good at playing Guardians last year but not in a way that I would be the favorite to win in most games either. I simply don't have the patience to stay with a single list long enough or to learn the set plays (they also bore me even though I know they are strong and would help me win more). I also mentioned in a couple articles, including the last one, that I have 0 interested in learning to play an Affiliation I feel is already figured out. So yeah I know playing classic Web Warriors would help me get better at the game but I absolutely can't bring myself to do that. I would rather build a weird list, include a D list character and see if it works anyway.
These are things that affect me in the bigger picture but not so much in the moment of playing the game. But there is stuff too:
4. Impatience during opponents turn
That should probably not come as a surprise. I try to be better about it but I often am too quick in applying damage to my characters (when they for example think about rerolls or something), assuming a thing my opponent does or simply getting impatient when they take their (rightful) time to think over an activation. I like to play quick but have to stop myself from getting to quick. Being aware of it definitely already helps and has me focus more on it.
5. Forgetting what I was about to do/ doing something too early to not forget about it
This has definitely cost me games 😄 I have gotten better about it lately but doing something too early to not forget about it has definitely been a problem for me in the past. What I mean by that is to counter an opponents turn directly when it makes no sense to do so right away. An example would be when you play a B shape secure and one side has all your opponents characters already activated and you have a model that can displace multiple enemy models in their activation. It would be nonsense to activate your model immediately now as there is no imminent danger for it and if your opponent has their activated models displaced s/he can now maybe even still do something about it. So the correct way to play here is to play the other side first and try to wait as long as possible with the displacing character. And, which for me is the hardest part, Don't Forget You Were About To Do That.
6. Forgetting little triggers like P2Fs, Healing Factor etc.
This is something that many players struggle with (I think) but remembering these is quite difficult for me. I think I actually only ever interacted with an Extremis Console once (while my heavily damaged character was securing it for half the game) and possibly never with a Deadline. Because I simply forget about it. On Pay to Flips is not that bad but the amounts in casual games where my opponent let me do it after I declared my turn was over is much higher than I would like to admit anyway. And with Healing Factor models I'm almost completely at the mercy of my opponent knowing my models better than I do...
For my 30 Guardians games I have made a cheat sheet. It listed all my important decision points during my turns/ rounds right down to actually handing out the Winging It Tokens (looking forward to Adam Warlocks leadership not needing those a lot 😅)
When I find a list/ affiliation I am motivated enough to stay with for a longer time (like the one I'm eventually bringing to WTC) I'll definitely do one of those again.
7. How it affects this very Blog
As you may not may not have noticed I don't have a fixed schedule here at all. When something crosses my mind I have to immediately write it down (which can sometimes take a couple of days but you get what I mean). I try to be quick and prioritize the monthly stats articles as they are very popular. My biggest and most important series though are the affiliation overviews and it bugs me extremely that those are mostly outdated at the moment. I've recently started the task of giving them their 2026 overhaul but I'm afraid Adepticon will impact it again already. So the plan is to update once I think an Affiliation is set to stay that way for a little while at least. I've started with Spider-Foes and Web Warriors are next on my list.
So over time I have accepted my ADHD as it’s just part of how my brain works. Being aware of it helps a lot. It allows me to build systems around it instead of constantly fighting myself – cheat sheets, self-imposed buying rules, focusing on short-term goals like 10-game badges instead of impossible feeling long grinds, and allowing myself to enjoy experimentation without beating myself up for not being “optimal”.
I’ll probably never be the player who grinds one affiliation for 100 games, memorizes every set play and calmly waits through every opponent activation with zen-like patience. And that’s fine. What I am is someone who genuinely loves this game, who gets excited about weird lists, underplayed characters, and new ideas – sometimes too excited, sure – but excited nonetheless.
MCP is a tonne of fun for me. You could definitely say it's one of my hyper focuses and writing about it is such a fun outlet for me. Hearing people genuinely enjoying it is also such a great reward.
Thank you very much for reading and Cheers from Germany 🍻
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