Original writers of the game and current Co-Head of Studio Will Shick and Development Director Will Pagani went on a lot of Podcasts to talk about the biggest Update in the history of MCP and after having listened to most (not sure if all) of them here's some bits of information found in those that maybe isn't as obvious and not repeated in every one. Not everything will be news for everyone and I don't claim to not have missed something but this is what I remember in no particular order (though I do try to have stuff vaguely connected):
Why was there a listing of a Morgan Lafey, Dr. Doom and Doom Bots pack on a French Asmodee site?
Because that was an idea for a box AMG had presented to Asmodee a long time ago and it wasn't approved but somehow made it into a document some way or another. This box is not real and if they ever get to do Doom we will hear it from the mountain tops and from themselves not a strange listing without pictures and more importantly a CP number 😉
MCA (Marvel Crisis Protocol Alliances) and it's influence on MCP:
1. Introducing characters through MCA
This isn't completely new information but maybe wasn't as clear before. While the first three MCA boxes will come with alternative sculpts for existing MCP characters, specifically Marvels big 3 in Web Warriors, Mutants and Avengers, in the future there will be packs with heroes and/or Villains that will be new to the game and introduce those into MCP through MCA.
Comment of the writer, nothing in the interviews specifically supports this claim: There's a certain team with 4 members fighting a single Villain ruling over country and being famous for having bots of himself. Just saying.
Any characters introduced this way will only stay exclusive to the MCA pack for a short while and then be released, without the game contents for MCP. AMG does not want to lock characters (permanently) behind a pay wall for a board game you might have no interest in.
2. FAST Assembly models
We can only expect models introduced through MCA to be FAST assembly models. Usual MCP kits will stay the way they are right now.
3. Will MCA replace Ultimate Encounters?
No, they are working on one right now but Shick couldn't remember if it was for Onslaught or someone else.
Slowed down character releases in 2026:
As the update was so big a lot of development time was spent on that which meant less time for new releases. We should (hopefully) see an uptick again soon. (Remember that they work 12 to 18 months in advance, so the delays from formatting and licensing with the PDFs shouldn't be factored into this)
Speaking of Shick "confirmed" that them doing the Runnaways some day is a question of when not if and that they are much more likely to make the game than Big Wheel.
Why there isn't and never will be MCU Synergy in MCP
We've always known that MCP is a game based on the Marvel comics and not the MCU (even if some character designs definitely take inspiration there) but Shick made it more clear in one of the Interviews what that actually means when having a Marvel licensed product: in their contract that had to pick a lane: Comics, MCU or Animation. So that means that we shouldn't expect any model releases to have anything to do with movie or D+ series releases.
Could there ever be a card pack with character specific TTCs for old characters?
An idea Lexa of the Morlocks Podcast had for years and in her interview she could finally ask the two about it directly and Pagani admitted he had never thought about it before but seemed very intrigued by the idea. He even mentioned it could simply be print to play. I wouldn't expect anything fast or soon but it could come some day.
Will there be a Ministravanganza this year?
No. They diced to only have one Roadmap event per year and unsurprisingly that is Adepticon from now on. We should expect some form of online announcement at the end of the year however.
The updates themselves:
1. The update is here to enhance the experience of the "median" player, not only the competitive scene.
2. Stamina changes and moving the goal post
Shick and Pagani explained this in most of the interviews and it is pretty important to understand. They felt the overall time to kill was too fast and were looking for solutions to that, ranging from nerfing every 5+ threat to having dazed characters still activate to other wild core Rules changes but ultimately came to the realization that more Stamina for the average character (and some nerfs to the most consistent damage dealers) were fixing the problem in a much easier and more elegant way. I think we all agree that we are more excited by about 170 (even if sometimes very small) buffs than a round of 50+ nerfs.
And then always came Shicks goalpost analogy:
The reason many of the already tanky characters didn't get a lot or any extra Stamina was that they wanted to make the gap smaller not just move everything slightly up and ending up at exactly the same distribution as before. They have three ways to make a character tanky: Damage Reduction (most reliable and strongest), Defensive dice modification and pure Stamina. The last one didn't work with the baseline for 3 and 4 threats and that's where they pulled the lever. Wether you agree or not and if it plays out as intended remains to be seen but it makes perfect sense when you understand the intention.
3. The Zemo problem
Shick and Pagani felt that 3 threats as a whole class in the game were extremely under the curve and weren't taken enough anymore especially if they weren't overstretching what a 3 threat should be. So we mostly saw Zemo, with some Miles and Black Cat (less so lately) as your typical splash 3. They knew for a long time that Zemo was not OK the way he was but ultimately didn't change him when they couldn't at the same time lift up a lot of other 3 threat choices because they felt Zemo was a necessary crutch for too many people. They envision him as more of a fighter in the thick of things now and like his Red Skull 1 leadership synergy (though I think he has more with Steve 1).
4. Steve 1s change is actually a buff
I've first heard it from AtB Jamie that Pat Dunford feels Steve is buffed not nerfed and Shick and especially Pagani also feel the same way. They don't like first turn jank (which isn't new) and the new version cuts that out while opening up roster building so much more with 1 and X powers now working with it.
They also clearly stated that they've now finally rid themselves of a problem in character design where they always had to add a Steve tax to many superpowers to not have a character being completely over tuned under him.
5. Learning from past mistakes (Thor 2 is back but not as he used to)
We learned that even though their releases where quite some time apart Malekiths, CGRs and Thor 2s designs were all done around the same time and were already in print when Malekith first ruined everyone's day and it took them quite some time to figure out how to balance them. And then when Thor 2 was tearing up the game they gave him an emergency fix that didn't undergo the usual testing time and we ended up with a character not close to being worth his threat. They always tell us to be patient and we didn't listen (but he was absolutely not OK before so it's fine) so he's now back to where he was but actually not really. The game around him has changed enough to make him a strong 6 threat again but not an opressive one in my opinion.
6. Angela was the first character in testing with a mechanic based on threat
This is a bit wild to me as she was in the November 25 update (only timing) but according to Pagani and Shick Angela started the whole conversation about having an ability based on the defenders threat which we've seen on Warriors Three, Valkyrie and Elendil as well as Clea and Doctor Strange before her.
7. They are as sad about the Apocalypse changes as you are
Pagani specifically agrees that Servants of the Apocalypse is their best designed Affiliation but it could absolutely ruin the game experience for a "median" player and was also competitively too strong for quite a while. There could be more horsemen in the future but no details on that.
8. Hulkbuster and removing a leadership from the game
As expected the removal of the Hulkbusters leadership on Hulkbuster was done for space on the card to add more interesting things there and because it was intended to be a "Silver Bullet" leadership you chose after deployment when you for example faced Magneto Brotherhood but people never actually did that so they deemed it (correctly) expandable. We should not expect the removal of leaderships on any other characters any time soon.
9. Magneto is back baby (many original X-Men releases had secret play testing and that's why they didn't hit the mark)
Magnetos update is great. Nothing much to add. An interesting piece of information though was that the original X-Men wave was tested in a smaller circle to keep them mostly a surprise. Which is why Storms leadership being to much and Cyclops being absolutely terrible wasn't caught before they released for example and why Magneto did need an update now.
10. Quick fire about character changes:
- Sin and Viper were a Meme; they aren't anymore. Viper was specifically updated to work great under Strucker
- having any Small Base S movers didn't work (we knew that) and they hope to see more Crossbones ☠️ on the table as they both love the character.
- Mysterio was tested and supposed to go on a 50mm base but something went wrong in production. They gave him the M movement finally to make up for it.
- making Cloning Banks a much worse card (I personally didn't think it was more than a kitchen table card in the first place) was a deliberate choice because they wanted to make Sinister a better character away from the card
--> there could be an update to the card somewhere down the line.
- Hulk is supposed to act more like Hulk (fight and throw stuff for dealing damage). They feel like him Leaping in round 1 is too much but will monitor if it was too harsh a nerf.
- Wanda was originally supposed to be in Convocation during its release. She broke the Affiliation back then but the game as evolved so much that it isn't a problem anymore
- King T and Red Skull 2 had too good math on their attacks and were toned down while gaining Peerless for enabling certain play styles
10. Phoenix
They know full and well that Phoenix doesn't work in her current form. They will give her a bigger update but they've only just started it and so it had no chance to be in this update.
11. They aim for a yearly Update circle now.
I wouldn't expect the same amount of character or anything close to it.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks for reading and Cheers from Germany 🍻
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