Inhumans take it all!: Big East Crisis Cup Ohio Valley Invitational Finals Tournament Report

The Road to the Championship

The (now defunct) Big East Crisis Cup was designed to run several regional MCP tours separately then invite all of the top players from each region to a season-end tournament in 

New Jersey. The Jersey tournament never materialized but our Ohio Valley region had strong competition over five tournaments spread between Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. I competed in four of the five tournaments and finished second in total points at the end of the season. The top 8 were then invited to a best-of-the-best tournament at the Fabricator’s Forge in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Field

Eight elite players, five from West Virginia, three from Pennsylvania. Out of the eight lists, there were eight different affiliations submitted. I brought Inhumans and my opponents brought Criminal Syndicate, Cabal, Midnight Suns, Black Order, Servants of the Apocalypse, Spider-Foes, and Web Warriors. 

In addition, there were 54 unique characters brought to the tournament. That is a very high number of unique characters with only a few brought by multiple players. Four characters were brought by three players: Shang-Chi, Rhino, Baron Zemo, and Toad. These constitute the most powerful splash characters in the game currently, with strong movement tools, impactful attacks, good superpowers, and objective-based game lines. Shang-Chi is the only one of the four that was not affiliated in any list, but often these characters were played as unaffiliated splashes in other affiliations anyways.

Characters played in two lists: Bullseye, Black Cat, Agent Venom, Doctor Voodoo, Spectacular Spider-Man, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Miles Morales Spider-Man, and Spider-Woman. One shared characteristic is their ability to interact with Extracts, especially when held by an opposing character. In the new meta of the War of Kings Crises I think there is a lot of pressure on playing an objective-focused game and interacting with your opponent as much as possible. To be clear, I think this is a great gameplay design and makes for very interesting games. I’m glad we’ve moved past the down-the-middle Secure Crises that ended up being slugfests. So, if you’re playing 2025 MCP, you should be bringing lists that are interested in grabbing Extracts. 

My List

I was drawn to Inhumans because of their interesting and varied styles of play, their consistency with re-rolls, and the strength of their characters. The affiliation rewards depth of game knowledge and has some of the coolest TTCs in the game currently. My core Inhumans affiliated models are: Black Bolt, Medusa, Quicksilver, Ms. Marvel, and Karnak. Black Bolt, Medusa, and Quicksilver are my core models for most games but Ms. Marvel and Karnak are strong 3s that I feel confident bringing to hold down Secures and support my team with displacement, support, and damage as needed. 

I am also bringing the top-tier splash models of: Baron Zemo, Namor, Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, and Shang-Chi. They provide me options at different threat levels and lean into either objective-based play or some attrition. 

Great Refuge, Terrigenesis, Inhuman Royal Family, and Inhuman Queen are top-tier tactics cards that are a huge reason to be playing the faction. I almost never play a game without taking at least one of these cards. 

Can I Borrow That?, I Am a Baron After All, Chi Mastery, and Double Agent are cards that support certain characters and I will sometimes bring them if I am bringing their character. 

Brace for Impact is 100% taken each and every game. Patch Up if I feel we could be in a grouped up brawl situation or if I need to bring a 5th card and nothing else works. 

My Secures represent what I think are strong objective-based Crises that will spread out the game and slow down any aggressive gameplan from my opponent. If my opponent has won priority and they are looking at these cards often they will let me take my Extracts.

My Extracts are even better for this list in my opinion. I love when an opponent lets me take my Extract and when I win priority I am taking my Extracts. All of them are Civilians which enables Terrigenesis TTC (which can be a 4 VP card) and all of them are on shapes that I love to play on and enable my gameplan. The F shape enables the Great Refuge + Quicksilver safe grab of my opponent’s side Extract and also Spider-Infected can allow for Namor to grab the middle point safely. Skrulls allows Quicksilver to grab the near midpoint and move away safely while Namor can grab a flank midline point and move back safely. 

I am also only bringing Crises at 17 and 20 Threat. 20 Threat allows me to bring Black Bolt, Medusa, Quicksilver, Baron Zemo, and Namor while 17 Threat is often the same core but without Zemo. Depending on the exact Crisis combination and opponent’s list I can also fit in other models to better tailor my gameplan. 

The Game Plan

Round 1:

• Black Bolt + Quicksilver + Great Refuge: Quicksilver long moves once, Black Bolt pays 2 to Great Refuge QS to the enemy side F Extract to interact, then QS long moves back to the midline 
• Namor can long move to the midline to grab an Extract then move again onto a Secure point
• If there is a midline Asset Extract token Quicksilver can activate late in Round 1 to move forward and make his builder attack against an enemy holding an Extract. If they have 4 physical defense dice there is ~50% chance you do 1+ damage and can pay the 2 power for the TTC Can I Borrow That? and take the Extract from them. Now Quicksilver is on your side of the board safely holding an Extract; bonus points if he can also be standing on one of your Secures. 
• With Bolt’s leadership you can also threaten Round 1 charges from several different models: Namor, Baron Zemo (can also use his TTC), Shang-Chi, Miles Morales’ Web Swing, Spider-Woman’s Place which gives action economy from Round 1. Also, if your charge into builder is effective and gives you power that power can be handed off in later Turns to fuel more charges from other characters. Shang-Chi and Miles have builders that also can displace enemies allowing them to win Secures in Round 1. 

Using these four tactics I plan to be ahead on VP at the end of Round 1. These lines of play are very efficient to score points on Round 1 and the rest of the game will be trying to stay ahead on VPs.

Round 2 and Beyond: 

• Smoothing out the rolls: The rest of the game will involve a lot of dice rolls and the Inhuman superpower will smooth out the consistency of those dice rolls and overall give you better results than your opponent. Inhuman characters have good stats and the re-roll is going to make them even stronger on average over a long run. Inhuman superpower doesn’t help with dodges but that’s why we take Brace for Impact. 
• I heard you liked re-rolls: The re-roll bubble of Zemo and Namor is also your friend. I like pairing one of them up with Medusa on a flank of the board. Medusa’s builder becomes very consistent and you get the Push and Flurry triggers more often. Building power on Medusa is also very helpful because she can use it on her very efficient superpowers. 
• You can win on Secures: many models in the list have displacement effects: Shang-Chi, Medusa, Black Bolt, Karnak, Ms. Marvel, and Miles Morales can move enemies with attacks and superpowers efficiently. Many of these models also have movement tech so they can put themselves in the perfect position to contest and win VPs on Secures. 
• You can win on Attrition: Many models in this list can also play an attrition game: Baron Zemo, Black Bolt, Shang-Chi, Medusa, and Namor can push through damage very effectively. In addition, Karnak with his weakness token and Ms. Marvel when she transforms can easily perform above their Threat level in terms of damage. Dazing or KO’ing your opponents will win you games when you can score the Crises and your opponent can’t. 
• You can win on Extracts: Models in this list can interact with Extracts held by your opponent: Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, Namor all have spenders that force your opponent to drop an Extract. This guaranteed method can swing 2 VP in your favor per instance which can add up over the course of the game. You also have access to 2 TTCs that target Extracts in Terrigenesis and Can I Borrow That? Terrigenesis has to target Civilian tokens and all the Extracts I’m bringing are Civilians. With Terrigenesis I usually target a grunt or character with 1 Health remaining to maximize the chance that I do the damage to Daze or KO which grants 2 VP and them dropping the token deprives them of 1 VP and if I can pick up the token that would give me 1 VP at the end of the round. That’s a total swing of 4 VP! 
• Always be thinking of how to maximize your score. Rarely, you should be giving up VP to be doing more damage but often you are getting ahead on VP early and staying ahead through your ability to win Extracts and Secures. Don’t forget to score those extra VP from Crisis effects or Spider-Woman’s Interrogate superpower!

Game 1: Web Warriors

My first game was against Web Warriors on the Wakanda table. I lost the priority roll and my opponent chose his Secures and my Extracts. We played Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (Extract, F, 17 threat) and Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends on Earth (Secure, D, 16 threat). I chose 17 Threat and brought Black Bolt (leader), Quicksilver, Ms. Marvel, Baron Zemo, and Miles Morales Spider-Man. My opponent brought Amazing Spider-Man, Miles Morales Spider-Man (leader), Ghost-Spider, Black Cat, and Moon Knight. I wanted to bring Zemo and Miles to better keep up with his fast Spider-people and Medusa can often be left in their dust. Zemo and Miles also threaten a mid-line charge on Round 1 that can possibly target an Extract holder or win a Secure point.  

My opponent activated first and with his ASM he grabbed the middle Spider-Infected and moved back to his back D Secure. I then activated Quicksilver and did the Great Refuge plan to grab one of his back F Extracts and  move onto a side D point where I had a piece of terrain that both blocked LOS and gave Quicksilver cover. At this point my opponent realized he was going to be behind on Extracts even though he had Priority and decided he needed to aggressively move up onto the side Secure points with Ghost-Spider and Moon Knight. 

On my turns Black Bolt was able to do a single move and his builder attack into Ghost-Spider Dazing her and giving him power to pick up a Spider-Infected. On the other side of the board my Zemo used his TTC to power up and his charge onto the point netted him one power. My last activation I moved Miles up then passed that power from Zemo allowing Miles to Web Swing onto the point, do a 6 dice attack into the injured Moon Knight. The attack ended up throwing Moon Knight off the point and Dazing him, and Miles picked up the Spider-Infected and won the Secure for the Round. 

Round 1 finished and I scored 7 VP to my opponents’ 2 VP. I was very lucky but was also able to leverage the power of the Inhumans to gain a huge Round 1 advantage. The Great Refuge, I am a Baron After all and passing power with Bolt’s leadership to functionally be able to charge Zemo and Miles onto a side point are big plays that paid off. I now held 4 of the 5 extracts and 3 of the 4 Secure points with my opponent starting Round 2 with two Injured characters who had power but couldn’t contest over Secures very well. 

The next couple Rounds my opponent Dazed Baron Zemo, Quicksilver, Miles, and Ms. Marvel utilizing All Webbed Up and some good rolls, but it was too big of a lead to overcome. In the last Round of the game I used Miles’ spender to force ASM to drop his Extract which I picked up, Quicksilver ran into a corner of the table with another Extract, and Black Bolt used Terrigenesis to take down Black Cat scoring 2 additional VPs and causing her to drop the Extract she was holding. The game ended 19 VP to 12 VP. 

Game 2: Cabal

This game I was matched against the Cabal player on the Guardians of the Galaxy terrain board. He won priority and chose his Secures and my Extracts. We ended up playing Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding (Extract, F with no middle point, 17 threat) and Deadly Meteors Mutate Citizens (Secure, I, 17 threat). I didn’t have a choice of Threat since we were locked into 17 and my team consisted of Black Bolt (leader), Medusa, Quicksilver, and Namor. I really thought this Secure was going to be a problem for my team and force me into a fight so I wanted to bring Namor who is good at being mobile, interacting with points, and fighting and Namor would enable Medusa to move enemy characters around and deal damage. He brought Red Skull Master of the World (leader), Ultron Metal Tyrant, Dracula, and Baron Zemo. 

We had just taken lunch and I believe my Web Warriors opponent informed all of the other West Virginia guys about the Black Bolt + Quicksilver + Great Refuge play. He deployed Ultron on one side and the grunts on the other, projecting his ability to block off the Great Refuge play with by using Ultron to grab one and using the grunts to block my ability to get within Range 1 of the other point. I deployed Quicksilver near the middle but with no expectation I would be able to grab any of his back F Extracts. 

A pivotal point in Round 1 came when my opponent moved his Red Skull past the midpoint line on the center Secure. On my activation I moved Medusa up and between her re-roll and Namor’s re-roll, she was able to Daze Red Skull on her activation as well as pushing him even farther toward my side of the board. At the end of Round 1 I scored 4 VP to his 3 and had Dazed his leader which put me in a powerful position moving into the rest of the game. I planned to focus on trying to KO his leader and his Zemo severely hampering his ability to deal damage and score objectives. I also felt confident that Black Bolt and Namor were holding my Extracts since they are defensively tough while Zemo and Ultron were holding his and I was already planning on targeting Zemo. 

At the top of Round 2 my opponent used the power on Red Skull to pay for Dark Reign onto my Namor and used Red Skull’s activation to Daze Namor making him drop his Guest. He also Placed his Red Skull farther away from my Medusa in order to keep him safe. On my activation I used Medusa to Royal Decree off the Dazed Namor into Range of his Red Skull instead of grabbing the Extract on the ground. I valued damaging his leader higher over the course of the game than the VP currently up for grabs. Unfortunately, Medusa was not able to KO Red Skull but did some chip damage. At the end of the Round I still lead with 7 VP to his 6.

Round 3 was the pivotal round for our game. Medusa activated and was able to KO Red Skull then Royal Decree to the other side of Namor and damage and displace Dracula using her builder again and her throw superpower. She picked up the Guest Extract token on the ground and finished her activation. Now my opponent had lost his leadership and Dracula was severely damaged and displaced. The rest of the Round went terribly for my opponent. My Namor first flipped the Meteor he was on, was able to finish off Dracula on his charge action and then do his spender to flip the center Meteor and damage Ultron ending with movement next to Quicksilver and Black Bolt. I scored all 7 VP on the table and we finished the round 14 VP to 6. 

In the final round Dracula got his revenge on Namor, KOing Namor and picking up his Extract. Black Bolt activated to whittle down Dracula then Quicksilver paid for Terrigenesis to finish Drac off scoring 2 additional VP. The game ended with my opponent having only Ultron remaining and a final score of 20 VP to 7. 

Game 3: Criminal Syndicate

For the final game we played on the Savage Lands table. Thankfully, I finally won a priority roll. I chose my Extracts and his Secures. We ended up playing Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan (Extract, F, 17 threat) and Wedding Party Targeted in Terrible Attack! (Secure, midline, 20 threat). My opponent chose 17 Threat and brought Kingpin (leader), Shadowland Daredevil with Hand Ninjas, Black Cat, Shang-Chi, and Bullseye. I brought Black Bolt (leader), Medusa, Quicksilver, and Namor. 

Since my opponent put out Shadowlands Daredevil and the Hand Ninjas next to both of his back Extracts, if I didn’t take one of them in my first activation he had the ability to take both of them. In my first activation I decided to activate Quicksilver and using his long move combined with the Great Refuge I took one of his back Extracts then moved onto a side Secure where Quicksilver was hiding behind a size 4 piece of terrain. 

My opponent decided to use his Hand Ninjas to grab the middle Extract and use Shadowlands to grab his other back Extract. Namor made a long move towards the central Hand Ninjas and KO’d them with a Trident attack, gaining 2 power and taking their Extract. My opponent was playing Kingpin which really wants to get ahead on VP early and saw that I had the ability to possibly score 4 Extracts this Round. He made the risky play to move Black Cat all the way to my back Spider-Infected and also move his Bullseye onto the midline Secure so I couldn’t score that as well. This move did pay off for the Round but he had put some of his characters in very dangerous positions for the rest of the game. We ended the Round with a score of my 3 VP to his 4 VP. 

I still counted this as a win in my favor. Keeping Kingpin from running away in the first two rounds means that you greatly take away his ability to score as you Daze models on his squad. Often if the game goes long Kingpin is at a disadvantage and I also knew the play patterns of a Kingpin squad and I could position to block his advantage and set up the next turns to Daze his models and move Kingpin off of points using Medusa’s builder. 

To start Round 2 my Black Bolt Dazed his Shang-Chi from distance, keeping Shang-Chi from activating this Round and weakening his ability to contest on Secures. I decided to swing my Namor onto the flank with Medusa and Quicksilver to concentrate my Extracts on one side of the board where I would have an advantage and my models already had good tools for dealing with his models. This turned out to be the correct move and the rest of the game Namor and Medusa bullied Kingpin with attacks from Namor that Kingpin couldn’t reduce the damage from and attacks from Medusa that moved Kingpin farther away from the point and my models. I caught up in scoring in Round 2 so we ended at 8 VP each. 

During Round 3 I Dazed both Bullseye and Kingpin while he Dazes Quicksilver, leaving the Extract on the ground at the end of the Round. Black Bolt withstands a barrage of attacks from Black Cat, Shadowlands, the Ninjas, and Shang-Chi and finally Dazes, but keeps them busy on the flank all by himself. We end Round 3 where I have 12 VP to his 11 VP and the Extract on the ground can easily be picked up by my Quicksilver with priority. 

He decides this game is lost for him unless he can make big plays with priority so he plays All According to Plan and runs his Hand Ninjas over to pick up the Extract while also rotating Shadowlands to make an attack against a weakened Namor. He doesn’t Daze Namor and leaves both of his models now holding Extracts near my Namor. Namor activates and charges into Shadowlands hitting him for half his health and giving him the Stagger. Namor then does his spender choosing the mode to explode out the damage onto the nearby Hand Ninjas. Shadowlands Dazes and drops his Extract and Medusa spends for Terrigenesis on the Hand Ninjas which KO and give me 2 VP and they drop their Extract. 

During Quicksilver’s activation he picks up an Extract on the ground and runs into the corner. I end the round by scoring 5 VP from the Crises bringing my total to 19 and my opponent keeps the other flank with Black Cat scoring 3 VP for a total of 14.  

Conclusions

Inhumans take it all! It was a great day of competition with the best players in our region. I lost priority rolls twice but got to take my Extracts all three games which I thought was key to my success. I was able to stand up against objective-based teams and a very strong attrition list. I successfully scored VP off Terrigenesis all three games which gave me enormous value each time. 

I think this list is strong and has staying power in the upcoming year. I would recommend it for players who like consistency and big plays. It can be a little thought intensive at times but really rewards players for having game knowledge. It has multiple play styles you can choose from when assembling your Threat. Black Bolt, Medusa, and Quicksilver were collectively my MVPs for the tournament. Great Refuge and Terrigenesis are wildly powerful cards and I think they should be played way more alongside Inhuman lists.   

The BECC is dead, all hail the Appalachian Cup! We are starting a new tour season for the Appalachian region. Our first tournament is going to be held at my home shop, the Fabricator’s Forge May 31st and the second is scheduled for July 19th to be held in Charleston WV. If you’re in the area we’d love to see you so please come out! It’s a great game and a great scene right now. 

If you’re looking to get into MCP there is no better place to look than FLG webstore!