MCP Updates – New Medusa, Enchantress, Valkyrie and more!

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For those of you who were also eagerly watching the Atomic Mass Games twitch last night, you’ll know that we got some changes to pretty big characters – As well as some other news. For those of you who weren’t watching, I’m going to sum up the changes and go through them all today! There were quite a few things dropped by Will Shick that you might of missed, so I’m going to include those too!

The changes and what we know

No changes to She-Hulk confirmed
No changes to any of the Uncanny X-Men
No changes to the other Inhumans
Medusa rebalancing
Enchantress rebalancing
Valkyrie rebalancing

So as I said, if you were watching the stream you’ll of heard Will confirming some of the things that are staying the same. She-Hulk not changing isn’t too much of a surprise, as I think she operates and performs pretty well for a six threat and isn’t missing anything. The fact that Will said there are no changes to the Uncanny X-Men was quite a surprise though, as a lot of people were hoping for a Cyclops leadership re vamp and some changes to Wolverine. I don’t actually think the X-Men are in a bad place at all at the minute, and as they get more and more characters I’m sure they’ll get even stronger. Recently Dom even changed his opinion on Beast!

The last bit of news that we got told was that the Inhumans weren’t seeing any changes outside of Medusa. This is quite surprising too, maybe more so than there not being any more X-Men changes. The Inhumans have a great leadership ability in King of the Inhumans, which lets them pass around power to one another.

This opens up some pretty interesting plays, but its locked behind the caveat of having to take their five threat leader Black Bolt. Black Bolt has a very lacklustre character card – And it feels like he is just missing something to be worth his price tag. I won’t go into huge detail about Black Bolt, but I’m sure if you’ve tried him you have probably felt the same. With Medusa being bought back in line, its hard to see a competitive core for the Inhumans now, as they relied heavily on Medusa to pull the weight for Black Bolt.

Medusa rebalancing

For a long time Medusa has felt very obnoxious due to the timing on her Braid Bash attack. Previously you would be able to bank the Push from the first attack, perform the Flurry, and then Push the target twice. If you’d ever been unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of this, you’ll know just how annoying this would be. The Flurry did require a Wild to trigger, so although occasionally it wouldn’t go off – With five dice and a reroll it was pretty consistent.

The only changes we have seen to Medusa’s new card are around Braid Bash. The first change is to the Push – Which now requires a Wild to trigger. On top of that, the push is now resolved before damage is dealt, so you won’t be able to stack the Push to use after the Flurry. I think this is a great change, as it now means the Medusa player will have to think a little bit more about whether they want to use that first push. It no longer requires the trigger of dealing damage, so although this might just seem like a straight nerf, there will be times where just getting the push without having to worry about damage will be really helpful.

The second change to Braid Bash is the trigger for the Flurry. Now you need to roll both a Crit and a Wild, which is a lot harder to do. There was around a 60% chance of getting the Wild for the Flurry before, but now that you need the Crit and the Wild, you’ll only be seeing this trigger around 22-28% of the time. Although these stats aren’t exact, they give you a rough idea of the impact of the change, and I know Jacob from Xavier Protocols will be doing an episode soon talking about the exact dice maths.

These changes to Medusa bring her back in line for what a four threat should be able to do, and in Will’s own words she is “A lot less oppressive”. I still think she is a really solid character, and will definitely see play in her own affiliations – But she might not just be an auto include outside of them now.

Enchantress rebalancing

Speaking of oppressive, there have also been a bunch of changes to Enchantress. Another four threat that was really out shining her weight class, Enchantress was starting to pop up in most rosters – From Wakanda to Brotherhood, yet alone her own affiliations. Through a combination of Superpowers, and a very reliable beam as the result of them, Enchantress was arguably Queen of the four threats. She bas been bought back into line, but she still is a very phenomenal control piece.

Again, although we haven’t seen huge changes – What has changed is very impactful. The first change is to Amora’s Kiss, which now costs an action. Previously this Superpower wasn’t an action, meaning you could Siren’s Call a model towards you, steal their objective and move away twice. I hadn’t realised how difficult that was to play against until I played Skrull’s against Tony at an event, and as he had Enchantress, Black Cat and Mission Objective, once he had lured Toad in and stolen the Skrull there wasn’t much I could do. With it now costing an action I think it is going to be a lot easier to play around, as with two Medium moves and a Sirens call it was very hard to keep a model safe from having their Objective stolen.

The second superpower to change for Enchantress is Siren’s Call. Much like M.O.D.O.K’s bow, Siren’s Call can now only be used once per turn. Previously you could use this Superpower as many times as you’d like, as long as it was against different targets. This opened up some crazy plays, from just displacing the entire enemy team, to setting up devastating Beam attacks that guaranteed Enchantress huge chunks of power. As I’ve said it was previously combined with Amora’s Kiss to make it even easier for Enchantress to steal your objectives – So I think the change to it now being once per turn is a lot more balanced.

Even with these couple of changes, I still think Enchantress is a top tier four threat. She might no longer be an auto include in the majority of rosters, but she still has an amazing tool kit for a four threat control piece. If only one character could have been changed to balance the game, I do think it was Enchantress that needed the change – So it’s great to see that AMG are clearly listening to feedback from the community.

Valkyrie rebalancing

The final model revealed to be having some changes is Valkyrie. Valkyrie has been one of the most consistent and versatile three threats in the game since her release, her Asgardian ability to gain two power a turn making her very good. There has been a change to her throw, as well as to her spender which I’ll quickly cover.

So the first change is to the cost of her throw – Asgardian Might. This used to just cost two power, but it has now been changed to three power. It was a very simple and almost automatic play that turn one Valkyrie could just move onto a secure and throw off a contesting enemy model, and she would always have the power to thanks to being an Asgardian. The cost increase means that this will no longer just be a possible turn one play, as you’ll need to source her the extra power to use it. I think this is definitely a positive change, and I think it was the only real change needed on her card.

We did, however, get another change to Valkyrie’s card – With the Flurry trigger for Dragon Fang now requiring a Crit and a Wild, similar to Medusa’s Braid Bash. Although I don’t personally think that this needed to be done, it does reduce the odds of getting the trigger drastically – For just one Wild you were looking at around 65% of the time, and for a Crit and a Wild your looking at something more along the lines of 30-35% of the time. I’ll let Jacob cover the exact maths, as I’m sure he is much better than I am at doing that!

Overall I think Valkyrie is still a solid three threat piece. I think she will still see some out of affiliation play, just maybe not as much as before. With all these changes combined I think it is definitely a step in the right direction, and now all that needs to be done is All You’ve Got to be banned! Joking aside, the changes all seem to be very good for the overall game balance, and now there isn’t anyone that springs to mind for being ‘Overpowered’. Okoye is still obscenely consistent, but I’m sure we will be seeing an updated card for her very soon! Let me know your thoughts on the changes below, and how they might effect your roster building!

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! If you’re interested in video content, then check out Wargaming Luke on YouTube as he shares his weekly Marvel videos!

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