Looking for your next roster to throw down with in Marvel: Crisis Protocol? Here we’ll breakdown the most popular and winning-est rosters from one of the biggest events of the year: Adepticon!
Adepticon was held over the last week of March in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this year and hosted many MCP events. (Atomic Mass Games also had a keynote presentation you can read about in my previous article.) These events included the highest levels of competition including the MCP World Champion tournament qualifier (158 players), the MCP World Championship (64 players), and the cut to top 8 to crown the World champion of MCP.
These were very competitive events and players were bringing great lists to try and win it all. The great news is that MCP has a great balance and you can play what you want and your favorite models and still be competitive. If you’re looking for inspiration on what these players at Milwaukee were playing, keep reading.
(One caveat here: the new season of Crises in Operation: Zero Tolerance will be releasing late May. The meta may shift around that but I expect there to still be a balanced slate of Crises for all strategies. Furthermore, we are getting ~80% of all characters re-balanced in June which I’m certain will again shift the meta. The fun of the game is trying new things and having to adapt to new conditions. Try these lists and try them again when things change!)
World Championship Qualifier (158 players)
(Longshanks link) Of the 158 players, we have 123 lists that were coded into Longshanks and you can see the affiliation breakdown above. It’s extremely cool that the only two affiliations not taken to the event were Thralls of Dracula and Weapon X. Both of these affiliations have a closely related affiliation which performs much better so it’s not really a surprise to see them left behind. Every other affiliation in the game was represented though.
The affiliation with the most games and most players was Criminal Syndicate. Criminal Syndicate have two competitive leaders with Kingpin playing the objective game and Shadowlands Daredevil using an attrition playstyle. Kingpin is just dominant on some Crises and some lists can’t deal with his speed in scoring VPs. For my money, I think Shadowlands is a pretty weak character on his own but has one of the best attrition leaderships in the game.
Defenders were the second most popular, leveraging strong characters like Doctor Strange as the leader, Blue Marvel, and Shang-Chi. Avengers and Apocalypse were next. Avengers have several great leaders available to them and a huge roster of models that are affiliated. It looks like Sam Wilson was the most popular in this event but all the Captain Americas are worthy of leading an Avengers squad. Apocalypse is is pretty narrow list because of the limitation of having Apocalypse and his affiliated models have to fit into the horseman roles they’re assigned. He’s still very strong and I look forward to his nerf come June.
Web Warriors and Dormammu got buffs at the end of 2025 with new characters being released and a character card change, respectively. Dormammu is also being taken as a splash character that you can pivot into as needed. Both of these affiliations were highly represented.
One of the least represented affiliations is the Inhumans. They were a dominant force in the meta as recently as earlier this year. They did have their Great Refuge TTC banned so perhaps that was enough to push them out of the top competitive tables. The best Inhumans record was 2-2 at this event so obviously they weren’t overperforming compared to the field.
The top performing affiliations that all finished with 4 wins were: Web Warriors, Apocalypse/Avengers, Criminal Syndicate x2, SHIELD, Hydra, and Apocalypse.
We still see the meta defining models as being the most popular. These include: Black Cat, Toad, Baron Zemo, Shang-Chi, and Beta Ray Bill. If you’re looking for a splash model these are excellent choices to consider. Black Cat and Toad are top of the line Extract and objective play models. Baron Zemo is a great attrition model. Shang-Chi and Beta Ray Bill both are just great all around models that perform above their Threat level.
If you’re going into a tournament, I would try to familiarize yourself with these models since you’re most likely to see them on the table. It’ll be easier to manage the game when you know these models’ strengths and weaknesses.
World Championship (64 players)
(Longshanks link) Here we have 64 of the best MCP players battling it out for the title of World Champion. Again, we have a great spread of affiliations. Interestingly, Criminal Syndicate now drops down in relative popularity, falling below Avengers, Apocalypse, and Defenders.
There were only two lists that finished 4-0 and both were a Kingpin Criminals and Doctor Strange Defenders dual list. It looks like they can flex into either leadership based on their opponent and the Crises picked. Both players won 3 games with Kingpin and 1 game with Doctor Strange.
The 3 Avengers lists that did best all had different leaderships, with all 3 Captain Americas being represented. While the recent release of Adam Warlock and other Guardians of the Galaxy has bolstered the affiliation, they were not dominant in this event. It looks like the competitive lists skew towards Star-Lord as leader but Adam Warlock can be a great choice in the right situation.
Top 8 Finals
(Longshanks link) It all comes down to this. After the cut to top 8 they play a single elimination bracket to determine the World Champion.
In the top 8 we saw players using the affiliations of Defenders, Criminal Syndicate, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers, and Web Warriors (Dormammu was not used as a leader in these games.) You can see the Criminal Syndicate players having the most success, securing the top 3 places.
The Criminal Syndicate players put Kingpin on the table 5 times in the final bracket, and Kingpin won all 5 of those games. That is just a dominant victory for whenever Kingpin gets put on the table. Whether it’s a local game or the biggest tournament, Kingpin looks to be exceedingly strong right now.
You can see the champion list above had a strong Avengers element to it but he chose to play Kingpin in all 3 of his games to become the world champion. Interestingly, he was using the First Avenger leadership in the previous day of games. So I would say this is a strong Avengers/Criminals dual list that can dominate through First Avenger dice modification or playing scenario with Kingpin.
Every single list in the top 8 brought Shang-Chi in their roster. We know Shang-Chi is getting a nerf in June and it seems he very obviously deserves it. We see recent models being popular in the meta but not meta defining. I think this speaks to the health of the game and how AMG is doing a great job of designing characters even in a crowded field. Blue Marvel, Iron Monger, and Moondragon all were represented in their respective affiliations during the weekend.
Conclusions
What a week of games at Adepticon. We see old favorites and new models all being represented in the competitive scene. The top 8 Kingpin domination was an interesting result and will renew calls for Kingpin leadership to be nerfed. Defenders seem like they’re in a great spot right now, utilizing Doctor Strange and Blue Marvel as hard hitting high Threat models. Guardians, Web Warriors, and Avengers are also topping the competitive scene right now. Don’t forget about Apocalypse; although he didn’t make it to the top tables this year he has a very strong presence in the competitive scene.
What affiliation do you want to pick up? We also have multiple new leaders and affiliations dropping this year which may or may not make competitive splashes. What do you think will be strongest out of Sentinels, X-Factor, Thunderbolts, Young Avengers, Intelligencia, and Onslaught’s Grip?
You can always find me playing at my local store in the Pittsburgh PA area, the Fabricator’s Forge. If you’re looking for discount models, check the Frontline Gaming webstore. If you’re in the Ohio, West Virginia, or Western Pennsylvania area, join our regional MCP discord! Good luck and happy gaming!
