Ministravaganza – Core rule changes!

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Last night we finally got the conclusion of the Ministravaganza, and as it drew to an end there were some changes announced that lots of people didn’t see coming. There were four changes announced to the core rules, all of which are around roster building and Crisis selection. So, without waiting any longer, grab your cereal or your lunch and lets jump straight in and break down the changes!

No.1 – Ten team tactics cards

When they started to talk about Team tactics cards, I genuinely thought they might reduce the number you could take down to six. What we actually got is the opposite – They’ve increased the number you can take to ten! I didn’t expect this to happen, but it is a really cool choice, and I think it means you need to be even more aware of different tricks your opponents rosters will be capable of. Cards that couldn’t quite make the eight or that were to situational will hopefully be seeing play now, and I think Psychic Shielding Device will be one of the cards we see making an appearance now you can afford to have a couple more match up specific cards. As long as Atomic Mass stay on top of the Banned and Restricted list, I think the move to ten tactics cards is a great change, although I’m not sure what extra two cards I’ll be taking!

No.2 – Random Crisis selection

This was another surprising change that at first I wasn’t a huge fan of, but quickly came around too. Previously once you knew who was using Extracts and who was using Secures, you would both discard one of your three cards and then secretly pick from the remaining two. This gave lots of control to the player who won priority, as if they built their roster a certain way it meant they could guarantee a certain threat value or a really good turn one play, if they won priority. The previous way of doing things also meant you could just take two Crisis you were happy with and not really care about the third – As you would never have to play the third one anyway unless you wanted to. Some people used this as a way of taking skew missions to possibly throw off the opponent, pushing more into the control aspect of Crisis selection.

With this new change you can’t do a lot of these things any more. Your going to have to make sure your comfortable playing all three of your Crisis cards, and can’t take say Wakandan Herbs to throw off your opponent – Unless you actually have a plan for it. This also means it will be a little bit more difficult to guarantee playing at your ideal threat values, so I think we will see people adapting to the smaller spread of Threat values moving forward. As I said to begin with I didn’t like this change, the control freak in me hating random elements – But it is still something you can control through Roster building and I don’t think it is actually a bad change – I think it seems quite good.

No.3 – Free parking for Infinity Stones!

When building a roster in the past, Infinity Stones have taken up a Character slot in your roster of ten. A lot of the time this meant that some rosters were only bringing nine actual characters, whereas some Black Order rosters would only end up with five or six, as they almost maxed out on Stones to be super adaptable.

Now Stones don’t take up a character slot, but they work very differently. As we had the announcement about the increase in Team Tactics cards, I thought they would take up a slot there instead. It turns out that they don’t take up any slots in your roster – But you have to assign them to characters during roster building. I personally think this is a little nerf to Black Order, but they might of needed it anyway as they have been smashing tournaments for a while.

Just to help clarify – Now during roster creation you could take Thanos with Mind and Time Stone. This only takes up one character slot, but Thanos has these Stones permanently attached. This means he is basically a nine threat character as part of your roster. If you take him in a team, he has to have these Stones. If you have Thanos and Corvus in your roster, only one of them could be assigned the Reality Stone, and you can’t change that during team building.

Characters like Loki who you might take in Asgard and use the Stones to help fill out to threat values can no longer do this, and in Guardians where you might give Star Lord or Ronan the power stone depending on set up, your now going to have to make that choice pre game.

I’m not sure if I really like or dislike this change personally – It’s a buff for me as I always take Corvus with the Reality Stone stapled on anyway. I’m sure though that the guys over at Atomic Mass have put serious thought and playtesting into this, so I’m willing to trust them on it!

No.4 – Alter Egos

This is probably the smallest change of them all, and I think it is a nice and much awaited change. Previously you were limited when Roster building to taking one of any character who shares the same alter ego. You couldn’t say take Spider man and The Amazing Spider Man. Now, however, you can! With the recent reveals of the new Doctor Strange, and the Hulkbuster, this means you’ll be able to take both Stephen Strange’s or Tony Starks when making your Roster. Your still only limited to one alter ego per Team, and you can’t just take ten Hulkbusters as your roster!

Atomic Mass announced these four core changes alongside some other news. In the future we are going to be getting updated cards for some of the Characters from the core box, and some of the Characters that were released early on. One of the biggest changes, which we have already seen, are those to the Hulk! AMG confirmed we will get free PDF’s with these cards in, and that they will be included in a ‘Card pack’ that we are yet to get more details for. Everything we are seeing from AMG looks to be taking the game from strength to strength, and I’m already looking forward to the next Ministravaganza!

As always please leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed reading, or a thumbs down if you didn’t! Please feel free to comment with any thoughts you have on the new changes! Board in Brum still currently have a bunch of great sales on, including the leaders for the Uncanny X-Men, which you can find here!

If you’re looking to expand your roster with some new Heroes for Hire, or take the dive into Marvel Crisis Protocol – Check out Board in Brums Marvel section here, for all the MCP goodness you need! Thanks again for reading!