Hot Off the Presses Special Edition: Electro and Shocker

Dear Reader,


I have been trying to limit my Hot Off the Presses hot takes segments to units that I feel are fairly straight forward in what they do and how they will play in the modern meta of Marvel Crisis Protocol. Today, I am breaking that tradition with two units that are wild, crazy, and seem like they may have a great home with their mortal enemies, the Web Warriors. Those two men are Herman Schultz and Max Dillon, or, as you probably know them better, Shocker and Electro. In a special two for special that I am dubbing Thunder and Lightning, I am going to give my thoughts on the use of these two men in Web Warriors and how that might affect your game play choices and decision making. 

 The Stats:

 

 

 

First and foremost, the name of the game for Web Warriors is survivability. Outside of giving our characters some form of damage mitigation or avoidance, such as defensive re-rolls, additional dice, stealth, damage reduction, or healing factor, we can rely on status effects to help mitigate the incoming damage. I feel that the three most important status conditions to keep team members alive is stun, shock, stagger, with root, hex, slow, and poison coming in a close second. And this power duo comes stocked with all of the needed status effects for survival built into their kit from nearly all ranges through a combination of builders, spenders and super powers.


Electro can throw out shock fairly easily with 2 different abilities that add the condition (his gainer on a Wild will add Shock and his reactive ability for 1 power gives back damage and gives Shock). Electrostatic is such a good defensive ability because it forces your opponent to decide if they want to spend time actually trying to deal damage to Electro or suffer damage and diminishing returns on their attacks. The only limiting factor is that the enemy must be within R3 for this to work, which the vast majority of enemy attacks seem to be within. I think making sure that Electro always has the 1 power to get Electrostatic off is going to be key to his play pattern along with his skill Ride the Wire, which we will talk about in a moment. Handing out Shock as a condition does not only benefit Electro, but the entire team of Web Warriors on the table. Under Miles, 3 defense vs 5 attack will generally do 0-2 damage (34.38% to deal 0, 22.63 to deal 1, and 20.43 to deal 2). With shock, you are still more likely to take 0-2 damage but you now have a 46.57% chance to take 0 damage, 23.69% to take 1, and 17.31% to take 2 (statistics obtained from Jarvis-Protocols App in-built dice calculator). A jump in nearly 13% to take 0 damage is wild and is not something to discount when playing Web Warriors. This does take into account the single reroll you get with Miles but does not take into account re-rolling skulls. I can only imagine if you partnered him with Shocker, whose ability to take away a dice in the attack roll like Shock but not Shock so they stack means that any attacks that are coming in to attack while within Shocker’s aura now have a roughly 61% chance to deal no damage to someone with 3 defense on Miles’ team if they are also affected by Shock. Baseline attacks will probably do absolutely nothing to your team of Web Warriors with this duo on the board and with Shocker sticking to their best fighters. This forces your enemy to either deal with these two and let Miles, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Black Cat just run away with objectives all day or let them be and watch as their chances to actually hurt your team just kind of disappear. Remember, this is all hypothetical, but it is an important thing to note when looking at these two that they may make for a power duo in Web Warrior games that force your opponent into bad and worse decision making, which is kind of the essence of the high speed, annoyance game play of Web Warriors.


Speaking of speed, let's talk about movement. Shocker is medium move and medium base. A very nice combination indeed which allows for faster than average movement around the map on par with Lizard. Now, will this take over a slot from someone else on its own? No. But it is a nice thing to consider that he is fairly quick which will allow him to stick to the characters that he wants to have in his aura. Electro, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Slow move on medium base is nothing that we are new to as we have had Venom for a long time (AMG…why? My boy needs help). It’s not the slowest thing on the planet, but it’s close. Well, until Electro decides that he now longer wants to be here anymore and just jumps away with Ride the Lightning. For 2 power, Electro can choose a terrain feature of size 2 or more within 3 and then place himself within 2 of that terrain feature. He may drop all of his tokens, but you could just Mission Objective onto someone else if you are worried. But, R3+R2 is already obscene as a movement place, but have you ever met Quinjet and Fisk Construction Building? Some pieces of terrain are massive, and Electro being able to add the range of that piece to his place is so interesting and fun, but at the same time is going to be a nightmare for people. For me, I plan on using it as an emergency relocation, as even if I am going through a dumpster that is still a possible 2 R2s and an R3 place with the space it can give you to escape an enemy. See someone is holding a point near a dumpster? Never fear, ELECTRO IS HERE. Miles getting whomped near a Quinjet? Webswing ranged Electro double tap to take out or shock the enemy. It has so many uses that it's nuts, and I both love and fear it.

Overall Impressions:

I think both will be able to find spots in Web Warriors lists quite easily, but will have a problem getting into the slot if that makes sense. Web Warriors is a faction that is spoiled for choice and I am so happy to see that when you look at Web Warrior lists they are generally different in their splash choices from Rhino, to Ultron 2, to Lizard, and so on and so on to the classics like Zemo and Panther. Our in-faction 3 threat units are very, very good. Miles, Gwen, Black Cat, and Spectacular Spider-Man have all been enjoying time as wonderful splash models in people’s rosters and make for an exceptionally strong group for our units to the point of being frustrating to fight against with their displacement, utility, and speed. The problem is that we also now have a group of exceptional 4 threat units both already here or in the near future. Spider-Woman, Agent Venom, and even Venom are all useful to the extreme and with Scarlet Spider and Gwenom coming down the pipe, we are going to see some real competition for those 4 slots. Even Pete1 is a fantastic model in his own right, he just suffers from being a good control piece in a sea of great models.


But, sadly, I don’t think Shocker is going to make the cut for a splash 3. He is competing against Zemo, who gives more consistent defense and attack rolls and Lizard, who is just more durable than he is throughout the game. Do not get me wrong, I think his card has a lot of potential, and we still have not see the box’s team tactic cards, but I have had Lizard in my group for a long time because the man just refuses to die in Web Warriors and I am not sure that Shocker fills that niche to nearly the same degree that Lizard does. While his aura is amazing and makes it harder for some units to pump damage, Shocker doesn’t get to control the enemy at all. If he had a push on his builder as well as the stun, then we would be in business as a real toss up between Shocker and Lizard, but self-buffing defense for power with no displacement doesn’t beat consistent damage reduction, healing factor, X-Ceptional Healing, a push and a throw.


Electro, on the other hand, is a model that I think has a lot of potential for us. Rapid redeploy alongside long range and reactive shock is a fantastic kit, and if you have enough power you can take out terrain pieces with his spender to take away enemy’s damage from throws (take the Magneto). He runs into the same issue Shocker does though in that he is now competing against Spider-Woman, Venom, Daredevil, Agent Venom, Scarlet Spider, and Gwenom for a spot on the team, and that is just the affiliated models. Rhino, Beta Ray Bill, and a few other choice 4 threats all work exceptionally well into the Web Warrior gameplan, and you are going to need a very specific plan to make Electro overcome other models to get him into the game for Web Warriors. This, too, can change once we see the group’s TTC. Electro does bring one thing that others don’t though, and that is damage on move, which plays nicely in with our ability to push and pull people around the map. Electro’s version is even more consistent in that it works off of crits and hits, instead of crits and wilds like most other people with similar powers.

Do I recommend the Box?

Yeah, I do. Sandman also looks to have great play with size unlimited pushes and teleport while Vulture is a Medium Move Medium Base model with fly and a kidnap. I feel like they all can bring something to the table if you want them to, and I feel like they are all going to be crazy fun to play on the table. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out or comment below and I look forward to the foes. 

 

Till next time Webslingers.