Hand Send Lone Assassin into New York: First Impressions - Elektra

Dear Reader,

Today we will be doing a first look at the sort of leader sort of member of the Hand Ninjas, Elektra Natchios (a.k.a Electric Nachos). Elektra has been a fan favorite for Marvel fans since her inception and now she makes her debut in Marvel Crisis Protocol. While her factions and Team Tactics Cards are still a bit hazy, her stats are as follows:

11 HP over her healthy and backside is about middle of the road for 4 Threat characters and her 3/3/3 resistances bring their own issues to the table since she doesn’t even get the benefit of things like Spider-Sense or Radar-Sense like Miles and Daredevil who share the same spot. For a character that seems very much like she wants to perform Rogue maneuvers from World of Warcraft, it is essential that she be able to stay in the fray longer. Compare her to someone like X-23 who also benefits from Healing Factor [2] and things get a bit more dicey for Elektra. She does have Stealth and Martial Prowess (which we will go over the issues with this when we talk about her power generation and what she wants to do) though, which is nice. But she really could have benefited from Martial Artist to round out her durability.

Attacks

Elektra’s first attack is an R3 Mystic attack at 5. A R3 Mystic attack is always welcome, adding on to it that she gets Pierce and Bleed is a very nice bonus. Add in the Hand Ninja generation for later pseudo-flurries is great. You know what isn’t great. Her lack of an actual builder. Her basic attack does not actually build any energy, not even a flat 1 power. It feels like the overall idea with the original Hulk was put onto Elektra, but they forgot how bad the original Hulk was, and he had amazing Team Tactics Cards like Gamma Launch to fall back on. This is made even more dire when you realize that it seems like her main focus is on getting off that sweet, sweet Impale on your enemies.


Elektra’s second attack is Impale, and boy howdy do I hate this attack. It seems very powerful in that it can be D10 damage, doesn’t allow for enemy crits to go through and allows for a medium move after it is resolved. Neat. It’s R1. It costs 5 power. It has a conditional to make it 10 dice. She has no builder. I repeat. SHE HAS NO BUILDER. So, unless you are playing specific factions, Elektra may get 1 or 2 Impales off in a game. That is….less than ideal. Especially when we consider Iron Fist has something similar (granted, it costs 8 power, but he generates 2 a turn, so I reckon it equals out) that throws and can give an activation token/stagger an enemy, I think Danny wins this contest hands down, and he is costs 1 less threat to do so. Elektra has some other tricks up her…sash? We will say sash. Elektra has some other tricks up her sash to make this possible though.

Super Powers

The trick in question is Assassin’s Step. I think someone over at AMG has been playing Genshin Impact, because this feels like the combo Keqing has. Throw a dagger, teleport onto the enemy, stab them until they are red. The problem comes in that she doesn’t generate power like a normal character and that this only works as a 7 power combo. That puts this combo into the same ballpark as Iron Fist’s Super Mega Dorito Dragon Punch, but without the added benefits of stealing 1-2 activations from a character.

If you are demonstrating your Martial Prowess then you aren’t Super Stabbing people. If you deal damage to your enemy then you are only generating half of your power back. It’s not bad, but it's also not good either.

I think this was the ability AMG thought would make Elektra worthwhile. I hate to say it, but it doesn’t. I really wish that this would have given you the ability to just generate power as if all your damage were a builder. But having Red Skull faction leadership in lieu of an actual general power source is…bad. Let’s compare. Original Hulk generated 3 power a turn unconditionally, had a jump that was unconditional outside of power investment and hit like a mack truck and did not gain power from striking. No one took him. Elektra is not guaranteed power, has a conditional jump, hits like a truck, and does not gain power from striking. I doubt the 2 Threat decrease will make her any more appealing than old Hulk. Especially considering how you are never guaranteed to generate any power with her ability what-so-ever.

Uses

I only see one use for Elektra Natchios: playing Super Mario. Wrong she can only move once. Elektra makes me sad. Outside of that, I don’t think she is particularly impressive. She has middling defenses for a 4 and her agility is too expensive to truly take advantage of, and she has a hard time generating power to do the things she really wants to do: Use her Sai’s like my Uncle at Christmas when you didn’t pass the peas quickly enough.

Affiliations

The affiliations, if you hate yourself, that I think Elektra will play nicely in are as follows:

1. Cabal (Red Skull): Red Skull Cabal gives Elektra an additional chance to gain power and enjoys having more offense hit the floor with generated Hand Ninjas. The problem is that this is still an all or nothing gambit.
2. Avengers (Steve Rogers): I only put this here because she can now Super Mario for 1 and Martial Prowess actually now is just refunded if it works. Not super strong, but still worth noting.
3. Dark Dimension: Dark Dimension actually does something very important for Elektra: smooths out her power generation. While Dark Dimension has not been seen as an uber threat since the patch to the game, I think Elektra is going to fit right in with this group.
4. Crime Syndicate (Kingpin): I think Elektra works well under Kingpin due to her mobility with Assassin Step. If you are within 3 of an enemy you are now contesting an enemy while you have 2 power if you damage them. This allows for her mobility to get her places she needs to be while still staying offensive. While I am not sure many CS players are going to want to place her in their rosters, considering she is a 4 threat character, I could see a more adventurous player utilizing her jump ability to get onto points aggressively.

Closing

I don’t think Elektra is going to make a huge splash in the meta. I feel like a lot of what she does can be done better elsewhere and I am not sure the generation of Grunts will be enough to warrant her cost in your squad. But, I also think none of us really know the extent as to how far Grunts will push the Meta. One of our gaming group’s members broke it down mathematically. One character gets 12 chances to alter the game. Do you want one of those 12 chances to be possibly taking out a Grunt or let them do what they want to do? I think that Grunts as a whole are going to shape how we play MCP going forward; I just don’t think Elektra is going to be a major part of the puzzle though. Only time will tell though.


Till next time Webslingers.