“Masked Menaces Rip Innocent Citizens From Their Businesses:
Pushing Your Opponents to Defeat”

Dear Reader,


Today we look at playing Tug-O-War with our opponents with Web Warriors. In our previous article, we talked about the two play styles that I have found effective while playing Web Warriors: Heavy Brawlers and Control Monsters.

While the two styles play very differently, they do have part of the core in common: Venom and Ghost-Spider. These two combined have between them 3 pushes and a pretty monstrous throw. If we add in Baby Pete to the mix (remember, I recommend only bringing him if you have a plan in mind to utilize him to his fullest potential, otherwise he is a 3 threat at best taking up 4 points worth of slot). In today’s article, we are going to look at some potential plays you can perform with Web Warriors.


To be effective on the field, we have to utilize all our unit’s talents, and these two+Baby Pete have some very interesting plays on 2 of Web Warrior’s favorite Secure scenarios: B and D. In all of my games with the ole Web heads I have found I am most fond of F, B, and D scenarios when playing control as they allow me to control the flow of the game a bit better and I feel that all scenarios are viable with Heavy Bruisers. Except A. No one plays A. Do not even attempt to say you love A in the comments; I will know you are lying.


A word of note on displacement effects in Marvel Crisis Protocol and how I view them in reference to secures is that they are effectively a stagger for your opponent. If you are playing Web Warriors at maximum distance or at the very least a good distance from your opponent you generally will not be giving your opponent a method to attack you back for free. What you will be doing is forcing your opponent to move back onto a point that he or she did not want to be moved off of. This is compounded incredibly if the target has already activated this round as now your opponent has not only given up a turn of scoring against you, but now also has to dedicate an additional turn to moving the moved character back onto point, thus reducing potential brawling potential and retaliation. The best part of Web Warrior displacement is that in return for only being able to pull your opponent towards you, the super-power pushes got to keep the ability to do the power multiple times in an activation. More importantly, there are no size restrictions on these pushes. I repeat, THERE ARE NO SIZE RESTRICTIONS ON THESE PUSHES. So, if you really…and I mean really…want to live your wildest MvC dreams, you can, with a 9 powered Venom, drag 3 characters in and do All Webbed Up in one turn.

Venom

Venom is an interesting character who most definitely will be getting an article dedicated to him in the future, but, for now, we are going to look at what he is capable of doing for dislodging people from

B Secures

On B Secures, Venom is able to reliably threaten the opposition with a pull at almost any distance and with no movement as long as he and the opponent are on the closest point, and with one small move he is capable of tugging from anywhere and then moving back to contest his own point (a move lovingly dubbed “Venom from the Top Rope”). Where the beauty of this comes in is if your opponent has allowed Venom to have 5 energy and both he and the enemy are close, Venom is now able to drag you across medium, Symbiote Tendrils for additional damage, and then utilize Klyntar Rage to throw the character in question an additional medium away. This either forces your opponent into a cage match with Venom (good luck) or forces the character to double move back onto the point. That is…of course…if they didn’t die from Venom essentially ordering Uber Eats from across the street.

However, Venom is also capable of double moving and threatening someone across the map with a tug. As demonstrated above, Venom is capable of reaching the closest point of the farthest object. He should easily be able to reach out and grab someone off of a point and into the loving arms of a cat burglar or crazy somehow wealthy moon hobo. This play is risky, however, due to the fact that Venom’s double move just gets him in range of threatening your opponents, but not so close as to guarantee it, so you will want to learn your ranges well before you decide to perform this maneuver.

D Secures

To threaten anywhere on D secures reliably will require at a minimum one move. You may catch your opponent slippin with the R1 needed to hold and they just decided to become Symbiote Chow that day, but it won’t happen often.

However, one move from Venom does put him into range to threaten both the far and enemy secure. This is generally something a lot of opponents do not take into consideration (so, for those of you who aren’t Web Warriors, don’t pay attention to this part) and ultimately leads to characters being chucked into the mid-field in the mid-game in a space where-in-which they do not desire to inhabit.

Rare footage of Venom’s training video for MCP

Ghost-Spider and Spider-Man (Peter Parker)

Ghost-Spider and Spider-Man have very similar profiles. For one additional threat on Spider-Man you gain Web-A-Pult (a decent mid range throw) and Spider Sense, but you miss out on the one person thrashing Ghost-Spider can deliver with the right amount of power (on an All Webbed Up turn, Ghost-Spider can throw down up to 17 dice and a throw on most opponents). For my money and roster slots, I much prefer Ghost-Spider, but Baby Pete can do all of these moves as well, plus a little more if you can somehow find the power to get his throw off. In this section, I will only refer to Ghost-Spider as my fingers would not survive the onslaught of Ghost-Spider/Spider-Man (Pete Parker) that would need to be used.

B Secures

Not much to say here that wasn’t already said in the Venom section. The only difference is that you now have options as to whether you want to fish for a wild to push the opponent off of the point or just tug them. My go-to turn 1 play is to move > Impact Webbing and, if I got the push off and I was able to keep them in range of the shots, hit them again with Impact webbing. If I do not get the wild, I use the immediate power generated from Impact webbing to tug my already activated opponent towards me. I cannot stress this enough, do everything in your power to not take hits on Ghost-Spider. Try your hardest to position your pulled opponents far enough away so as to only get one or no strikes back in retaliation if possible.

Ghost-Spider can also perform the same shenanigans as Venom with a single or double long move. You will more reliably be able to threaten the entire opposite side of the board with a pull, and, if you can find some poor sucker in the middle of the field you can always Spider Technique them for an additional free long move to get into position and possibly generate extra power. The ability to double move and threaten near anywhere is key with Ghost-Spider, so do not be afraid to use her mobility to your advantage.

Where things get interesting is if she has surplus power. In the above diagram, you can see that she is capable of threatening almost, if not all B secures, even with starting from the middle D secure. If a fully power ghost spider is on the field on a B secure map, she can very easily activate last and rip up to 4 or 5 enemies off of points with no trouble. 

D Secures

Because Gwen is on a smaller base, she is unable to pull off the same threat range by just standing around as Venom. However, due to her long movement, she is capable of more reliably being anywhere on a D secure she needs to be for rapid deployment and to create headaches for already activated enemies.

Closing Thoughts

Today was just possible plays you can perform on a number of popular secure scenarios. Being able to pull people off of points, even points that require you to interact with to take, is a huge boon for any team; luckily, Web Warriors is filled to the brim with characters that can do just that. These are not the only plays you can make, just a few I regularly use in my games. You will find that the best way to play Web Warriors and reduce your opponent’s effectiveness at the same time is to go with the flow, read your opponent, and react accordingly. This may mean that these plays get altered or even thrown out the window entirely. That’s ok. Winning by even 1 point is still a victory, so adapting your plan to get to that point and be successful is key.


I hope you enjoyed this week’s article, and if you have any requests or ideas for future articles, please do not hesitate to comment down below! I have lots of ideas, but I also want to be able to supply everyone with the content that they want.


Till next time fellow web-slingers.