New challenger approaches! Marvel Crisis Protocol welcomes its newest affiliation in 2026, the Mighty Avengers. This is obviously an Avengers subset affiliation filled with the good guys and led by the newly released Spectrum!
Leader of the Mighty Avengers: Spectrum
Spectrum is a 4-Threat, mobile character with hard-hitting attacks but can only generate one Power at a time with her attacks. She has a reverse Pierce effect when she rolls Wilds on her defense which can also gain her Power. All of this Power generation will synergize with her Leadership, Stronger Together Than Apart, which allows you to gain one less Power and in exchange another allied model gains a Power. This leadership can only be used once per Turn.
This type of Power sharing leadership has been seen in different forms before, most closely in the Black Bolt leadership for the Inhumans which can pass a Power from one model to another within Range 3. That leadership is great so already we’re excited for the Mighty Avengers to be a good competitive affiliation. Like the Black Bolt leadership, the Mighty Avengers leadership is a net zero Power (lose one and gain one) so you’re really just looking to redistribute Power to the models that are going to use it best. In the Mighty Avengers there are a lot of models that use Power well (which we’ll get into later) so that’s a good start.
One of the advantages of the Black Bolt leadership is the ability to pass Power at will, at any time, without having to meet any stipulations. For instance, in Black Bolt’s leadership you could pass Power in your first Activation phase Turn without having performed any actions. This could set you up for a Charge or other TTC or effect that you wanted to do. The Mighty Avengers have the stipulation that you need to gain Power and when you do you can pass it to another allied model instead. While this will still enable you to perform some interesting Round 1 plays, it is also more constrained and not as consistent.
I do think the Mighty Avengers leadership is good and will be utilized best with practice and repetition. I think a player with lots of experience with these models and this leadership will be vastly more successful than a first time player. If you’re looking at Spectrum and her affiliated models and you think you want to pick them up, I think you will be rewarded with a high skill ceiling that can help you win more games. It is definitely a leadership that allows for skill expression and strategic thinking.
Remember, this leadership can be triggered by gaining Power from attacks, from taking enemy damage, any effect that gains you Power for rolling a certain die face (e.g. rolling a Crit result with Amazing Spider-Man), and also effects that give Power (Spectrum’s Reverse Pierce or a Meditate superpower). There will be many opportunities to pass around Power during the course of the game, you’ll just need to figure out when the best time to use the leadership will be and where the Power should be going.
Spectrum is very synergistic model with her own leadership, since she has several guaranteed forms of getting Power and can generate power when getting attacked through taking damage, using her reverse Pierce, or both. She also makes good use of her Power through her superpower Energy Boost which boosts attack dice for herself or allied characters. Her Spender attack can also give her movement through a Place effect and on a Wild she can Throw the enemy character.
You’ll need to take her every game for the Mighty Avengers leadership and I think you’ll be happy to do so. She will want to be around other allied models to maximize Energy Boost so probably don’t push her onto a flank.
Blue Marvel: the 5-Threat Turret
Also included in her box is Blue Marvel, a 5 Threat turret-type character who can dish out damage and has a great Throw superpower. He counts Skulls in all of his rolls and gains extra Power when he has a Skull in his roll. This will make all of his rolls better on average and he’ll be gaining incidental Power from rolling Skulls any time he’s rolling dice.
However, he’s a small base medium move with Flight and no other movement tech. This makes him pretty immobile compared to most modern competitive Marvel Crisis Protocol models and he’ll really appreciate any allied model that can help him move up the board without using an Action.
His attacks include a Range 4 Builder and an Area 2 Spender. He can make strong attacks from far away or move up into a group of enemies and unleash his Area spender attack. Finally, he has a very good Throw superpower with the ability to Throw terrain or enemies size 4 or less in Range 3 using the Medium movement tool to Throw them. His other superpower allows defensive re-rolls for himself or an ally within Range 3 for 3 Power.
Overall this is a good package of effects and looks very similar to a model that’s been around in the game for a very long time, Scarlet Witch. They have the same movement and pretty similar Builders. Blue Marvel’s superpowers are generally helpful although Judgement can be the best condition in the game to give out. Scarlet Witch has a similar struggle where she’s a 5-Threat that can be displaced and when she’s using actions to have to move into position she won’t feel like she’s making the biggest impact on the game.
I think Blue Marvel has a place in the Mighty Avengers, but it’ll need to be the right Crisis combination where he can stay in the fray and help out his allies with defense re-rolls. He will really shine when he can be making two attacks, use his Throw superpower, and have Power left over to use his defensive superpower too. (You can see where the Mighty Avengers leadership feeding him Power will be very useful.)
Affiliated models
Other models affiliated with the Mighty Avengers can be seen below. These are a mixed bag of characters, with some very competitive in the game and some that won’t be the best competitive picks. The leadership is a net zero power exchange so the real skill expression will be getting Power to the right character at the right time in this affiliation. To that end, there are a couple characters who will really utilize the extra power and should be looked at for use in your Might Avengers teams often.
The very good 3 Threats
First, we have Luke Cage. Luke Cage is an S-tier 3-Threat in the game now with his kit. He has good attacks, good defense, a Taunt superpower, a 2 cost Throw superpower, and you’ll want to bring along his Heroes for Hire TTC. Passing him Power will enable him to utilize this kit very efficiently. I see Luke Cage being an auto-include for your 10 model roster and brought often in your teams that hit the table.
Sam Wilson is another great 3-Threat who can use the passed Power very well. His Charge superpower, Air Lift to move another allied character, and his extra Defense dice superpower will all be good expressions of your team’s Power. Additionally, his Gainer attack will be a good way for him to get Power and also pass Power to other teammates. His Spender can move enemy characters off of points and move Sam Wilson as well. This seems like an affiliation with some great 3-Threats and bringing Sam Wilson along could also allow you to be playing Avengers as well.
Iron Man, Black Panther Chosen of Bast, and Ant-Man are also all reasonable 3-Threats to put in your team. Probably Ant-Man is the one to be cut first but I would say that he brings some tools to the board that very few other models have.
Black Widow is a good 2-Threat to help you build affiliated teams but she’ll probably be giving away any Power she may get over the course of the game.
The characters who want to be given Power
Spectrum herself will want to be using her extra attack dice superpower often so you can pass Power to her quite often. Plus her giving extra attack dice to her allies will often net more damage and Power for your team.
Blue Marvel has some good superpowers to use but isn’t an every game model. Same as Captain Marvel Cosmic Avenger. She can have a really big Turn when she Transforms but if she isn’t pulling her weight during those Transformed Turns it can be hard to justify using her. You’ll want to try and Transform her multiple times a game as well.
We know that She-Hulk is getting a large character change and that could buff her and make her more competitive in the near future. Time will tell.
The cute in-affiliation combo play
The cute combo you can do on this team is using the Ultimates TTC with Steve Rodgers Captain America’s superpower I’ve Knocked Out Tyrants to re-roll any number of dice in the large dice pool to maximize the effect.
I think this affiliation list has promise and the new models of Spectrum and Blue Marvel will be interesting to get into the mix. After you’re comfortable with the Mighty Avengers affiliated core of models, you’ll want to add in non-affiliated models that can either generate Power to pass along or get donated Power to use it well. This could be models with the Meditate superpower or models with incidental Power generation, or just your favorite model like Shang-Chi who always wants to have access to a couple of Power to use his superpowers.
Also, don’t forget to use your Mighty Avengers leadership in these two situations. First, when your character already has 10 Power or about to gain more than the maximum of 10 Power, you can use leadership to give Power to another character instead of losing your power to the maximum of 10. Second, if your character has the Stun condition and would gain more than a single Power, you can use leadership to pass a Power to another allied model before the Stun reduces your Power gain to 1. Both of these situations will help you not lose out on that precious Power.
Conclusions
I think the Mighty Avengers looks like a great addition to the game. I’m excited to see another affiliation hit the tables and I like that it is a subset of the larger Avengers team. I’ve only played them a little bit and heard from others who have played with the Mighty Avengers and everyone is positive on the experience. What do you think about these characters and what has your experience with them been?
This first new affiliation of 2026 is great, and I’m looking forward to even more additions this year like the Young Avengers!
Our competitive MCP tour, the Appalachian Cup, has a season that is coming to an end soon! If you’re interested in joining you’ll still have a couple of chances to play before the next season starts. Join our discord and find an event somewhere in the Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, or West Virginia area! You can also find me playing at my local game store to the Pittsburgh area, the Fabricator’s Forge. At the end of February we are putting on a team MCP event which is a really fun format. We’re still looking to get to 8 teams (24 players!) so check it out. If you’re looking for discount models, check out the FLG online store! Good luck and happy gaming!