2025 has brought several waves of game changes to MCP and while those changes are still being adjusted to, we now have a clearer picture of the state of the game currently. February nerfs, War of Kings Crisis changes, and the small character update have all made their own respective changes to the game. I think the most consequential change was the War of Kings crisis update which took out some of the brawlier maps and put in more objective-focused crises. I think this has definitely hurt the win rate of the attrition style rosters and shifted the main winners to objective-based teams.
I want to discuss what leaders are seeing success currently based on data from Longshanks and how we can interpret that data to draw conclusions about what is doing “best” in the game right now.
Methodology: I pulled data using the Longshanks stats tab. I looked at games played from 3/1/25 to 6/30/25 in North America. This is what I’m most familiar with and will probably be the most interesting to the reader on this site.
I will be reporting leaders that have over a 52% win rate and have over 100 games logged in Longshanks. The caveat to this data is that on Longshanks players sometimes log affiliations but leave off the leadership. My feeling is that it is mostly newer players and that most of the leader-less games are losses. It does skew the reported data a little higher for win rate in that case. I do believe that most tournaments and experienced players do report leaders in their Longshanks games and that should give us an interpretable picture of the winning leaders in competitive games.
MCP does support the ability to play an affiliation leaderless. If you have over 50% affiliated models you do have access to the affiliated TTCs so there are border cases that an affiliation was logged as leaderless and in reality they did play without a leader. More power to you if you find success in this strategy.
MCP is a hobby tabletop game so don’t take this as scripture on what you can and can’t play. But I think it will be helpful to understand what and why some lists are doing much better than others. MCP overall feels like everything is balanced and can be played.
The game feels like it will be pretty steady for the next couple of months. There aren’t a huge amount of new releases coming in 2025, we don’t expect a new crisis rotation until next year. We shouldn’t see any further character updates in 2025. That means if you want to pick up and learn an affiliation, you should feel confident that it will stay relevant for months to come. There is no better place to buy online than the FLG online store.
Before I did a deep dive into this data, my conversations with other players in my area revolved around leaderships that provided re-rolls or power generation/economy as being the most successful. These resources over the course of the game provide a big advantage in the new meta. There are a lot of objective based games and attrition doesn’t seem to be keeping up with these successful lists in the current crisis offerings.
Servants of Apocalypse (Apocalypse)
Apocalypse, leader of his servants, boasts a 58% win rate with 805 games logged. Apocalypse’s leadership basically layers a whole new set of abilities onto the characters he can take as his horseman. It also provides a power and re-roll generation resource in the form of his evolution tokens. A lot of game knowledge and experience will really help you play this complex leadership because it provides so much on top of already good character cards. Be ready to plan out your Horseman combinations before arriving at the table because it can be complex and challenging in the moment. Colossus got a good buff recently and I think this affiliation still has room to grow. My favorite characters for this affiliation are The Blob, Toad, Archangel, Psylocke, Wolverine, and Sabretooth. Pick it up, but be prepared for the learning curve.
Web Warriors (Miles Morales)
Miles Morales is a cheap, efficient character with a leadership that gives defensive re-rolls to his team. It enables the existing gameplan of picking up and stealing Extract tokens from your opponent and living long enough to score to 16. This gameplan is supercharged by the TTCs available to the team in the form of Spider-Tracker, Fall Back, Recalibration Matrix, Patch Up, Brace for Impact, and others. Miles has a 56% win rate with 502 games logged. He is backed up by great affiliated models such as Spectacular Spider-Man, Ghost-Spider, Spider-Woman, and Black Cat.
Inhumans (Black Bolt, Maximus, and Medusa)
Overall the Inhumans affiliation shows a win rate of 58% with 694 games logged but interestingly, all three leaders have a win rate over 52%. Maximus’ and Medusa’s leaderships have recently come out but there isn’t a huge learning curve for them since they are generically good and don’t have to be built around. I do think the Inhuman superpower re-roll is buoying this affiliation to a positive win rate. New Inhuman characters have also provided a boost for this affiliation.
Black Bolt has a 61% win rate with 393 games logged. His leadership allows for passing power between allied characters and enables early game plans and can often provide a character the last power they need for a big effect through the game.
Medusa has a 57% win rate with 109 games logged. Her leadership provides a short advance, a power, and heals one damage on an allied character when they Daze or KO an enemy model. This leans into the attrition game plan but is generically useful and rewards you for interacting with your opponent. I also think Medusa and her affiliated characters provide enough control over the battlefield that they can stop their opponent from scoring out early.
Maximus has a 53% win rate with 107 game logged. His leadership layers another set of forced re-rolls on all of his allied models. Of course, many affiliated models already benefit from the optional Inhuman superpower re-rolls. The downside is the possibility for your opponent to place your model for free which potentially can lose you victory points throughout the game. However, it seems that the strength of the affiliation and the re-rolls are helping Maximus make a positive win rate.
The Inhuman affiliation is a medium to high complexity team but they also are resilient, powerful, and successful. I like the affiliated models Black Bolt, Medusa, Ms. Marvel, Quicksilver, and Karnak.
Convocation (Choose your own adventure leader)
Convocation is an interesting affiliation because their leadership does not conform to a fixed character but can be put on any affiliated character at the beginning of the game. Convocation is a complex team of characters and I find that people who like to play them are very experienced and invested in their team. The affiliation leadership shows a 56% win rate with 191 games logged.
The leadership has two sides and you have to pick one at the beginning of the game and you have the option to pay 1 Power to flip to the other side in the Power Phase. The first side allows you to Place an allied defending model within Range 1 after it has taken damage. This can give action economy and generally useful for staying on points and in relevant range. The second side gives a re-roll in the attack when you’re using a Mystic attack agrinst an enemy character without an Activated token and a Defensive re-roll when an allied character being targeted does not have an Activated token. Overall the flexibility of this leadership and the fact that it gives relevant effects on both sides and doesn’t even cost a TTC slot and it can be affixed to any Convocation member means that it is good, especially in the hands of a seasoned veteran. Convocation isn’t an affiliation I recommend a lot to new players but it is rewarding to master and there will be new models coming for the team.
Wakanda (M’Baku)
Wakanda is an affiliation I don’t see much in my local area but recently one player has been taking them to top finishes at multiple tournaments. Wakanda leader M’Baku is sporting a 55% win rate with 266 games logged. His leadership lets an allied character change a die result to a Hit in the attack roll if they also roll a Wild. It also helps characters stay on Secures by nullifying enemy Pushes and Places ~38% of the time while you’re contesting an Objective token. M’baku already has a superpower that stops him from being Pushed or Advanced by Physical and Energy attacks from enemy characters size 3 or less so you’re definitely not going anywhere with him. It will help you do more attacks over the course of the game and score more victory points. Overall it’s a solid value leadership and Wakanda is a tough affiliation to fight when they can bring all their threats to bear on you.
I do want to bring special attention to King T’challa who has a 68% win rate over 37 games and Black Panther who has a 62% win rate over 29 games. It seems like very few but very skilled pilots are taking these leaders to great win rates and there is potential there. I would definitely recommend picking up Wakanda and seeing what you can do with it in your hands.
S.H.I.E.L.D. (Namor)
This affiliation is another team with high complexity and rewards high experience. Namor’s leadership comes on a TTC (The Invaders) and it gives a defensive re-roll and unlocks skull re-rolls when within Range 2 of another allied character. This is highly synergistic with his Range 2 re-roll bubble. In practice I’ve seen SHIELD players with big re-roll death balls that can take over a game. Namor has a 56% win rate with 103 games logged.
Criminal Syndicate (Kingpin and Shadowlands Daredevil)
Kingpin provides a leadership that enables scoring VP early and trying to get to 16 VP. This is an outlier in the list of leaderships we have so far discussed because it does not give any re-rolls or power generation/economy. However, this leadership can be abused using tough characters and fast Extract runners making it difficult for opponents to keep up. Kingpin has a 55% win rate with 446 games logged. Kingpin has been weak to attrition in my experience because the counting as two on secures only works with healthy models and attrition can take that part of the leadership away early and make it so Kingpin has a hard time scoring secures for the rest of the game.
I like Rhino, Black Cat, Abomination, and Ulik as models that are tough and objective focused in my Kingpin team.
Shadowlands Daredevil gives you attack re-rolls when targeting an enemy model holding or contesting an objective. I like this leadership since it gives you a bonus for fighting over the VPs on the board, which you should be doing already. In fact, it can be a good teaching tool to remind yourself to target enemy models who are holding Extracts. Just think, you could be Dazing some of your opponent’s models but if they aren’t holding objectives then you’re really not stopping them from outscoring you. I first used Shadowlands Daredevil with models that had a rapid-fire Builder attack in order to maximize the re-rolls I was getting in the game. I think that’s a sound strategy but at this point there aren’t a lot of rapid-fire Builders out there that I’m really a fan of. I do see people playing with Winter Soldier and Shadowlands and that might be your best bet. Alternatively, this leadership really powers up any attack targeting an enemy model holding or contesting so you can just choose the best value characters to be played. I’ve seen people having success with Mephisto in such a role.
Avengers (Sam Wilson)
Long gone are the days of Sam Spam but the leadership keeps on and it is showing quite a healthy win rate. Sam has a 62% win rate with 103 games logged. This is relatively a low number of games but obviously the pilots of these lists are crushing it. The leadership says when a non-Grunt allied character is Dazed or KO’d by an enemy effect, choose another non-Dazed allied character. The chosen character removes a damage, removes a special condition, and may advance Short. A character can only be affected by this leadership once per Round.
This is a great leadership. Your characters will eventually be Dazed and KO’d during the game and in return you get free actions in the form of a Shake and Short advance with a heal tacked on for good measure. At first this leadership was used in teams of very low Threat characters, leading to more instances of the leadership and overwhelming your opponent with your action economy. Sam himself boasts a very strong character card to go along with his strong leadership. Although this isn’t the most popular leader to be playing, it feels like a slam dunk to pick up and run as an Avengers team.
Another special mention here is that Steve Rodgers (from the first core box) has a 52% win rate over 719 games logged. He’s the most played leader and since he is in the core box he’s often played by newer players. However, his leadership which gives discounted rate to allied superpowers is still an incredible tool for the Avengers and in my opinion can discount 10+ power over the course of a game. There is basically no barrier to using this leadership and there are tons of affiliated models that love the discount: Hulk, Shang-Chi, Iron Man, Black Panther, and Cable just to name a few.
Spider-Foes (Green Goblin)
Spider-Foes is an affiliation that seems to fly beneath the radar and is performing better than I expect them to. Currently Green Goblin has a 56% win rate with 221 games logged. The Spider-Foes definitely have some aggressive characters and Green Goblin enables their success by allowing for a single re-roll of your opponent’s defense die once per Turn. You’re likely to turn a defender’s success into a failure so it’s a consistent leadership that rewards you for attacking.
The Green Goblin character card is interesting and good although there is the big drawback that he cannot interact with or hold objective tokens on his Injured side. His superpowers can push more damage so I think he’s a strong contender if you’re looking for an attrition leader.
The new Spider-Foes models and TTC have created a strong choice for the affiliation.
While Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist has a 50% win rate over 229 games I do think that his leadership is very powerful in the new crises and he should be an option if you’re looking at Spider-Foes. Carnage just got a buff in the latest character update and I think he is worthy of a look for your team. Otherwise I always like Rhino and Lizard as affiliated models in my squad.
Asgard (The Mighty Thor, Thor, Loki Prince of Lies)
The Asgardian faction saw the release of 4 powerful new models last year and since then Thor Hero of Midgard has had to be nerfed by AMG. Asgard is still a powerful affiliation with access to many good (albeit highly costed) models. The Mighty Thor (Jane Foster) has a 54% win rate over 192 games. Her leadership allows for an attack re-roll once per Turn if you’re within Range 2 of the target and a defense re-roll once per Turn if you’re being targeted from outside of Range 2. You’re likely to benefit from these re-rolls consistently throughout the game and she buffs her already strong team.
The original Thor allows for an allied character to pay 1 Power to remove a damage or special condition from themselves once per Round. He has a 54% win rate over 151 games. This leadership doesn’t seem like much but it can be annoying when your opponent can shrug off chip damage or a Stagger condition without much difficulty. Thor’s character card has also been buffed where I think he can hold his own on the table.
Finally, Loki Prince of Lies has a win rate of 53% over 132 games. This new Loki is extremely annoying because he counts his opponent’s skulls when attacking or defending, and he can ping you for 1 damage when you roll a skull. He has a great defensive line at 4/4/5 with 13 health. He has a long move and his Mystic attacks are effective against lots of models. His leadership allows for an allied character to pay Loki 1 Power to re-roll 1 die in the attack, defend, or dodge roll.
Obviously Asgard is in a good place right now. They have three good leaders with high win rates and their models are recent and powerful. Even with the nerfs to Thor Hero of Midgard, you can still try him out on the table.
Midnight Sons (Blade)
The Midnight Sons have had a couple boosts to their ranks recently with the release of Elsa Bloodstone, Man-Thing, N’Kantu the Living Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Werewolf by Night. That isn’t even mentioning the reworked Doctor Strange. While Elsa is the new leader she isn’t having a great win rate, although her leadership provides for a toolbox of attack additions that can hamstring your opponent’s team.
Blade is the most winning leader for the affiliation, with a 53% win rate over 669 games. Blade’s leadership allows for an allied character to spend 1 Power and place themselves within Range 1 of their current position. A movement tool that can be a cheap Charge when you need it to be, a way to place yourself onto a Secure objective, a way to move away from enemy characters and into Cover. It’s another leadership that boosts the effectiveness of your characters and lets you do more attacks over the course of the game. Blade’s own character card is not anyone in my local meta’s favorite but he buoys his team to new heights so it’s a fair trade-off.
Remember, the bigger the base the bigger a Range 1 Place can move you across the board. This is very obvious when the Midnight Sons put Immortal Hulk onto the board and on Turn 1 he can play his TTC One Below All and Place himself Range 2 then use Blade’s leadership to Place himself Range 1 and suddenly he’s already in the middle of the board without using a single Action. His attacks can build him power and possibly fuel his Throw in the same Turn. Immortal Hulk is already difficult to deal with and under Midnight Sons he can be truly a terror.
Cabal (Red Skull, Master of the World)
The Cabal affiliation are the true world stealing villains of the Marvel Universe. Their leader, Red Skull Master of the World features the Captain America arch-nemesis wielding the Cosmic Cube yet again, boosting his allies attacks and pushing the damage. Red Skull MoW has a 55% win rate with 177 games logged. His leadership lets non-Grunts making an attack roll treat 1 Skull as a Crit (which then explodes in the explode Crit attack sequence). After the attack the attacking character loses 1 Power and if they have no Power they take 1 Damage instead. A Crit can be seen as kind of 1.5 successes so turning a Skull that you definitely weren’t happy with into more damage is a big effect. Red Skull MoW also is allowed to spend allied character’s Power to pay for his attack actions or superpowers. He has access to two superpowers which allow him to Throw terrain and Place himself or another character within Range 2.
Red Skull MoW should be used in conjunction with other Cabal models looking to pump out damage. Baron Zemo is an obvious first choice here and I could see being taken every single game. I like original Sabretooth since he has a strike-back attack in response to being attacked which can use the leadership outside of his activation. Ultron Metal Tyrant is still a good choice for Cabal since he and his Grunts bring damage to the fight. Ultron Metal Tyrant and Red Skull with enemy model displacement effects can be very effective to stopping your opponent from scoring Secures and putting them in Range for more attacks or your terrain Throwing superpowers.
Affiliations with no leader above 52% win rate
Not only do these affiliations have an even or losing win rate, not a single leader has a win rate over 52%. They are: Sentinels, Hellfire Club, Black Order, X-Force, New Mutants, Brotherhood of Mutants, Winter Guard, X-Men, Defenders, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thralls of Dracula, Dark Dimension, A-Force, Legion of the Lost, and Hydra.
Some notes about this list: The new Defenders leadership for Dr. Strange was released late in this data series and I think still has some potential for success. It is better than his previous leadership and his character card got a buff as well. While it doesn’t have inherent re-rolls or power economy, giving out Hex is going to stop your opponent from adding dice from Crits so I could see him enjoying success in the same vein as Green Goblin.
People were quite enthused about the Dracula leadership, especially after it was clarified that affiliated models could heal themselves. I’m a little surprised it hasn’t done better but hopefully someone can find success with it. Similarly with Mephisto’s leadership, I thought it would be more impactful. I have played against Mephisto but not with him as a leader.
Obviously there are a lot of leaderships in these affiliations that grant re-rolls or power economy. So it isn’t an absolute truth that any leadership that has re-rolls or power economy will be better than average. There definitely exists a problem with some affiliations who have a weaker roster or TTCs to choose from. Some of these affiliations have not had a new model release recently so they could be suffering from falling behind the power creep.
Brotherhood has just had 3 models released and we will see if they can help their affiliation but they will still have to be played under either Mystique or Magneto leadership.
Phoenix is also a new character with big, flashy abilities but seems like she could be taken off the table early in the game and make less of an impact than the average 6 Threat.
I hope the new models expected this year will boost these factions. I am excited for the Nimrod model coming with other Sentinel affiliated pieces. Hopefully some day we can get another A-Force leader because I think they would really thrive when they aren’t burdened with an expensive leader like She-Hulk.
Let me know your thoughts on the leadership meta. I’d be interested to hear what is winning games at your local store. Personally I’m seeing Doc Ock and various Wakanda leaders overperforming at my store.
My region is still in the midst of the Appalachian Cup! On July 19th there will be a tournament in South Charleston WV. I also have my eye on the Akron Brew Brawl event which was a blast to attend in the spring. Always, you can find me at my home shop the Fabricators Forge in the Pittsburgh area. Stop by and see what leaders we’re rocking in the next tournament.
If you’re looking to pick up models to build out a leadership discussed here, try the FLG online store! You’ll be putting models on the table in no time and there is no better time to start playing MCP than right now!