The World Team Championship has ended and with it some of the best players in the world return back to their home countries as champions in their own right no matter whether they won or lost.
But, with this passing of the championship also includes a ton of data for those of us who like numbers and stats (or at least pretend to while we look at trends). There are, before we get into the numbers, a few things to note:1) The tournament was supposed to be only 1 model per team. This did not happen due to circumstances for some of the participants out of their control. That is why we have 32 Beta Ray Bills out of 31 teams.
2) The new Core Box was not allowed for use at the tournament, which meant some factions were limited to 1 leader, such as S.H.I.E.L.D. and Spider-Foes.
3) Because of the restriction, you will see characters that you often would not see due to the necessity of filling spots. So, depending on the team, staples like Black Panther in Web Warriors may not show up if they are alongside a Wakandan teammate for example.
4) Due to how Longshanks operates in data, this list is not completely comprehensive. It will be missing models that weren't taken at all or if the website determined them statically insignificant. The same applies to Team Tactics Cards.
5) I am not a statistician. If I messed up on the math I deeply apologize and please let me know in the comments below.
With these things out of the way, I have divided the data into 5 categories: Factions Taken, Characters Taken, Characters Taken Sorted by Threat, Team Tactics Cards, and Scenarios Taken.
Affiliations Taken
One of the things I found interesting was that one of the top factions in the game, S.H.I.E.L.D., only had a showing of 4.11% overall with only 9 players choosing to bring them to the event. I speculate that it was because key players for the roster, such as Iron Man, Bullseye, and even Bucky, were taken more across other factions, which would prohibit the faction's shooting ability. What doesn't surprise me though is the inclusion of so much Crime Syndicate for the lists. Crime Syndicate from my experience has a lot of great matchups and does very well against groups that don't, or in this case can't, bring the right tools to ruin their day. Kingpin's leadership is fantastic and requires a solid plan to approach, even if that plan is to just shoot them a lot. I am surprised to see that see that a third of the teams brought a Midnight Sons option, which makes me happy to see them back on the table. What also stood out to me was the complete and utter lack of Weapon X and Sentinels for the event, especially since Sentinels do not take up too much of a faction tax with being able to bring only 3 models that maybe only a few other factions seem to enjoy. Weapon X has to share solid hitters such as Logan, Sabretooth, and X-23 with other, more popular factions such as X-Men and Brotherhood, so that wasn't as much of a shocking revelation in the data. But I think this confirms what I have thought for a long time: Sentinels need help. If they can't even make an event that seems to be tailor made for their inclusion, how are they supposed to function in events where you can see powerful pieces more often?
Character Pick Rates and Stats
All hail the breaker of Stats! The hero who broke the mold! Representing 103% of the percentage, Beta Ray Bill made every single team and then some. All joking aside, I do find it interesting that Beta Ray Bill made it to every single team this year. He is a true force to be reckoned with in his defensive, offensive, and control aspects and he enables the dreaded turn one eyes play quite handily. Next up we have Toad and Bullseye coming in, which should be no surprise to anyone as they are some of the best two threats in the game. Toad brings safe extract plays and maneuverability while Bullseye brings consistent and reliable damage to those teams that need it while being affiliated with Crime Syndicate. Black Cat oddly got better with her "nerf" as she now is exceptionally difficult to down while also being able to reliably hand out Stagger. She may be able to truly do everything now with her claws dealing with low threat targets more reliably as her stagger robs larger targets, like Hulk and Cosmic Ghost Rider, of turns to do what they want. Rhino rounds out our top five brought units as he also finds a wonderful home in Crime Syndicate alongside Cat and Kingpin and can literally rob a target on turn 1 with a little bit of luck. One of the things I enjoy about this format is it forces people to utilize models that don't normally see table time competitively. Blob, Captain Marvel, and Ronan all made the table, and Ronan even came with a Gem for lists. I also find it interesting that for a lot of people, the Kaiju is the terror of MCP at the moment. Models with 6+ threat are tough to play against if you are not seasoned or have specific counters to them, but only 2 made it in the top 10 most used models on teams (before anyone says Thanos would made it since I divided him up by Gem choices, he only showed up roughly 17 times, making him taken only a little over 50% of the time). I will say this though, the fact that Beta Ray Bill is so universally taken may be problem. Toad and Bullseye I understand a bit more, they are two threats and easily splashable. I find, however, that if I am splashing a 4 threat there is a good reason for it as that spot is a bit harder to slot into the actual team being brought to the table, and with his ubiquitous nature at this event, I will be interested to see what future events hold for him on the stats.
Character Pick Rates by Threat
A quick breakdown of the top contenders for each threat tier:
8 Threat - Thanos with Space and Reality Gem. A tried-and-true juggernaut of a model that deals both consistent damage with superior mobility and support, Thanos SR is a tough model to crack and was arguably the reason Reality Gem and Space Gem were put on the restricted list (thanks Big Blake). This spot really only goes to Thanos or Dormammu and right now I think this may be one of the best Thanos variants outside of ThanosSM (Space and Mind Gem).
7 Threat - Immortal Hulk makes it to the top of the 7-threat pile as a premier, unkillable (or nearly unkillable) displacement and attrition piece. With Malekith getting thwacked like a pinata with the nerf bat, it makes sense that The Immortal Hulk makes the top of this list.
6 Threat - Hulk is again featured as our top threat person for his tier. Lots of HP to dig through, ramping DPG with damage, and the ability to throw up to three people a turn and stagger two of them makes for a hard guy to deal with and consistently take points from. Hulk has been a staple in lists since his rework and I suspect he will continue down that path until he is changed or something scarier comes along. I am actually surprised though that Cosmic Ghost Rider didn't edge him out as he is a hard target to fight, but the Hulkster still took the number one spot.
5 Threat - Ulik and Amazing Spider-Man tied for this honor as the top 5 threats to be taken. Amazing Spider-Man doesn't surprise me as he is so much more efficient with his rework and his durability because of it has gone even higher. It is tough to take him out and he is so fast that he can flee sticky situations with ease. Ulik though was a surprise for me. I can see why with his bulky stats and DR1 along with great mobility, but I don't feel like I see him in my area all that much, so it just surprised me that he made it this far to share the throne.
4 Threat - Beta Ray Bill was the number one model taken for teams and as such comfortably sits on this throne for top four threat.
3 Threat - Black Cat, again, was in our top five, so it's only natural that she makes the top ranking of three threats.
2 Threat - Toad and Bullseye share the stage at the two-threat level as they serve different purposes but are just as easily splashed.
Top Team Tactics Cards
Our top five picks for most taken Team Tactics Card are Brace for Impact, Fall Back, Eyes on the Prize, Patch Up, and Mission Objective. These cards have a minimum of 40+ percent inclusion in lists, with Brace being a whopping 71%. Brace is one of my never leave home without it cards as it saves me from falling buildings or random limp bodies being tossed. Eyes is one of those cards that I don't think is busted, but I am not sure how it effects the game as a whole. I have anecdotally seen an uptick in Asgardian splashes to abuse Eyes for safe turn 1 extract play and I wonder if that will be addressed or will we see it as a staple play for many lists. Either way, it only made a little over half of the lists present while Fall Back, a great defensive tool, made nearly 62% of all lists. One thing to note here is that, unlike characters, you could have overlap in your Team Tactics Cards, so some cards will be more effected than others in their inclusion (such as This is a Robbery).
Most Chosen Scenarios
Our most chosen scenarios are.... aggressive to say the least. Fear Grips brings more DPS and both Research Station and Gamma Shelters force you to fight in the middle. Scoundrels makes sense to me as we had a lot of Crime Syndicate, and they love that scenario and who doesn't like more power from Infinity Formula? What I can appreciate about this spread is that there were no scenarios taken in over 50% of the contestants. While a 40% rate is still high, it isn't as egregious as the character pick rates, which seems like our scenarios are, for the most part, in an ok place. It would be nice to get more in future packs, but I think right now they are fairly ok. Our lowest pick, S.W.O.R.D., is an awkward duck with its redesigned structure and layout which may be why it isn't taken as much as the others.
I hope everyone enjoyed the numbers and I look forward to future analysis!
Till next time Webslingers.
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