Las Vegas Space Pew Pew: Stats and Figures from LVO

Dear Readers,


In the United States of America, war gamers from the nation fight every year across a myriad of gaming systems to secure their spot in what many consider to be the championships of war gaming. Every year, these same war gamers travel hundreds of miles to secure their spot on one of the largest stages in our hobby: The Las Vegas Open. Sixty-four players were invited to compete for the glory of being champion. One can assume, all players brought what they thought would bring them the greatest chance of victory (fun is victory before you interrupt my attempt at an epic documentary style intro in the comments). In today’s article, I will break down the stats for the event. We will be looking at a few items: Faction breakdowns and victory percentage, character usage, team tactics usage, and scenarios. So buckle up, cause we have a lot of numbers to go over.

The Factions

Before we go too far into the numbers, it is important to note that no game system will ever be perfectly balanced and, in games like this, people sometimes play factions due to character loyalty. With that being said, please also keep in mind that we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 factions in this game. I want you to keep those numbers in mind, because in a perfectly balanced system, where everything has an equal chance at victory, we should probably see each faction being taken +/- 3-4 times. So, with that out of the way….

Guardians, from the perspective of 24 factions, absolutely dominated the attendance of this event. 12 of the 64 players selected them, making up around 18% of the attendance. Web Warriors come in to a close second place with 10 players at 15% and Hellfire Club comes in third with 12% of the attendance. 30 players populate the top 3 factions. However, like I said earlier, I understand that this is a competitive event and no game system is balanced. So, instead I would like to look at win percentages as a whole per faction, and man is it a doozy. Guardians took the event with a Guardians on Guardians fight in the finals. The faction as a whole has a 63% win rate at LVO. Now, let me start with I am no statistician. I am just here giving the numbers and my take on things. So I will leave some of our other factions alone in this rant because 7 games of X-Force and 1 game of Black Order being played doesn’t give enough data for a trend. But 48 games with a 63% win rate (Guardians) and 35 games with a 60% win rate (Hellfire Club) may be cause for alarm. Compared to Web Warriors, who clocked in 34 games and have a 35%. It seems like flexibility and consistency are very good in our current Marvel Crisis Protocol climate.

Our final 8 were 2 Guardians players in the finals, Wakanda (3rd), X-Force (4th), Hellfire Club (5th), Defenders (6th), Brotherhood (7th), and Avengers (8th). Congratulations to Gregory Schadt on your victory at LVO!  

Top 5 Characters taken at LVO

Beta Ray Bill - I hope you are ok with King Bill, because this is twice I have seen him take the top slot. Same things apply - He is hard to kill and shift. He can throw almost anyone off of points to maintain position. He has a myriad of immunities. He has access to Eyes. If you have been playing competitive MCP since his release he has been a dominant force in the meta. 

Toad - Safe extract grabs and murder are what wins games. Toad does half of that for 2 threat. He fits into a lot of lists for how fast he is and how hard it is to catch him if you don’t just outright kill him. 

Black Cat - Felicia being in top five again does not surprise me. She is highly durable with long moves and the ability to hand out stagger. Knowing exactly how much damage your opponent can do at maximum allows for great threat assessment in a game that can have such variance in dice. Also, she still has a fantastic steal option coupled with her durability. 

Hulk - He’s big, he’s mean, he’s green, and he has enough control options to keep people off of points and to shift over to murder if you hit him too much. Hulk does a lot at 6 threat. 

Spider-Man (Miles Morales) - Miles Morales shows up a lot in other factions for a guy who leads a faction. Venom Blast + Web Swing seems to do a lot for Miles in factions that can generate him additional power so that he can maximize his mobility and forced drops.

Team Tactics Cards

 

Brace for Impact - At 75% of lists taking this card, it demonstrates the need for variance and the power of throws. Even characters who have dodge rerolls love this card, as even Amazing Spider-Man looks in terror when a size 4 is thrown at him and Brace has already been burned. This is one of those few moments where I will say that at such a high inclusion rate that it’s a very good card that probably doesn’t need to go on the banned list.


Fall Back - The first of our Anti-Aggression card. Fall Back is popular because it gets you out of dodge when you need to go. It is used by a number of different factions and is seen in roughly 50% of the lists at LVO. Attrition lists have been steadily on the rise and dominating the meta along with the inclusion of Cosmic Ghost Rider in the game and I think Fall Back being the second most brought card to the event is in direct correspondence to that.


Eyes on the Prize - Tied for second place in the top five is Eyes on the Prize. If I had more time, I would count up all the lists that had both Bill and Eyes since the two seem to go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly, but no one really has that kind of time. What I will say is that this card also screams “Don’t hit me” and I would imagine is also influenced by the hyper aggression the meta seems to be facing right now. Being safe turn 1 is very important and taking center line objectives while being able to run away with several of the models that can use Eyes is massive when it comes to not only winning the game but also the survivability of your models.


Sacrifice - On demand bodyguard is great, even if it comes with some downsides. Being able to protect your key models from all the pew pew going on is essential to winning and being able to throw a two threat in front of your more expensive models to keep them scoring and safe is a big deal. At 44% of lists using it, I wonder how much higher it would be in usage if it wasn’t restricted.


No Matter the Cost - I use No Matter The Cost in my Web Warriors list. Being able to do your spender in exchange for health is huge for some characters. I am surprised it is so high though considering the aggression of the meta, but having 10 slots for cards also means you have more choices for important cards like NMTC to help your game plan going in the right scenarios. It cam in at 44% usage.

Scenarios at LVO

 

 

Knock knock.


Who’s there?


Hammer…


Hammer who?


Hamming this point that the Crisis in Marvel is Aggression!

Overall the most taken scenario is Hammers at 62% roster inclusion. More attack dice is always nice and generally the tax on TTC is mitigated by the additional power you generate. I will say I am surprised that it wasn’t in either of the top 8 Guardian’s lists, which if you asked me would have definitely been a “I like dice” faction that could abuse it. Alien Ships comes in at number 2 at 46% and Super Powered Scoundrels takes third place at 36%. The gulf between first and second is a massive one though and between second and third is also fairly large. The percentage difference starts to peter out a bit from there between most taken with SWORD Base being taken the least.

I look forward to the discourse regarding the numbers. I think that there are some things here that may be cause for alarm to be honest. Having such a huge victory margin for two factions would be cause for nerfing them, but I am honestly a little worried about what that means for the game. For perspective, we have 7 factions with a 60% and above win rate: Black Order (1 Game Played), X-Force (7), Avengers (12), Guardians (48), Hellfire Club (35), Defenders (23), and A-Force (10). Generally if it is under 15 games I disregard it as it’s not enough statistical data in my opinion to create a valid argument. But with 48 and 35 games under their belts at LVO, a tournament of champions, Guardians and HFC just seem off to me in their win rate, and I am not sure how to fix them properly without removing some big tools from the belt. My fear with such large victory pools is that it will also bleed over into every other event at some point if not dealt with early, which creates a larger divide between the haves and have not for factions in the game. Even Web Warriors, who have a high win rating when you look at Longshanks, only were able to eek out a 35% win-rate over 34 games. If the game becomes to polarized towards certain factions winning it reduces hype for the game and big events. It is one of the reasons I left 40k for this game was that balance seemed to be very well done in MCP, which looking at these numbers may not be the case anymore or for to much longer. 

 Hopefully we get an errata or two in after Adepticon and the fix isn’t just to make modified, single list Timelines the format we play and remove problematic factions.


Till next time Webslingers.