[Crisis Protocol] Competitive Innovations in the Danger Room, January 2026

Since the last competitive innovations article for Crisis Protocol we've had quite a few shake ups from the Ministravaganza event in November. The core rules have been updated to change how mission building, priority, collision damage and area attacks work. Additionally some key characters were updated, breathing life into entire affiliations in some cases, such as Dark Dimension, now that Dormammu has been buffed.

We did a full breakdown of exactly what these changes were here in case you want to delve deeper.

We are going to take a look at rated events with 20 or more players taken from Longshanks data in the last quarter of 2025 Oct - Dec. Some of these events will have been team events with different list building requirements, however, I've included them as the play and win rates are still interesting to analyze.

Top Affiliations by Win Rate

The Servants of Apocalypse.

So to kick things off the affiliation with the highest win rate should surprise no one who has been following the competitive scene. Apocalypse sits with a 61% win rate across 372 rated games.

There are a number of reasons why the affiliation is so strong. The Horseman powers that Apocalypse hands out pushes some of his affiliated 3-threat characters to become closer to 4-threat. If you compare Magik with the War horseman power to Ronin you find that they are extremely similar yet Magik costs a threat less. When Apocalypse is doing this to multiple characters it can feel like playing him is like playing against someone who has 3 or more threat worth of abilities than you do. When you give a character an Infinity Gem they go up by a threat and yet Apocalypse is giving out similar powers without the same tax.

On top of this the servants have a number of tricky abilities that debilitate your models giving out conditions such as root, slow and poison out early preventing your characters from having an effective rounds 2 or 3 as you no longer have the power to fund your own abilities.

The changes from Ministravaganza only helped Apocalypse's dominance. One of the few weaknesses Apocalypse himself had was that his in-built healing didn't work when terrain was thrown at him. Being size 4 he also didn't like it when characters like the Mighty Thor or the Immortal Hulk constantly threw him into his own team mates. Now that collision damage maxes out at 3 he has become even tougher to take down.

SHIELD

The agents of SHIELD come in with a very respectable 59% win rate across 131 rated games.

They are another affiliation that has a lot of interesting tricks that an opponent has to chew through. Eye in the Sky is one of the best defensive tactics cards in the game with a huge number of potential uses and that recycles itself when used in SHIELD.

Additionally the Invaders leadership using stacking rerolls combining Baron Zemo and Namor can make for an oppressive gun-line with very consistent dice variability.

The changes in the latest minstravaganza potentially helped SHIELD more than most other factions as Nick Fury, Black Widow Agent of SHIELD and Hawkeye all had increases to their health which, when combined with all the other defensive abilities in SHIELD can make the team very difficult to put down.

Inhumans

The Inhumans Credit - Alfred_Pharius

The Inhumans came in with the joint second with a win rate of 59% across 311 rated games.

The Inhumans have had consistent and strong performances in the competitive scene in 2025. Their new box at the start of the year brought some strong affiliated 3-threat characters in Gorgon and Karnak. Additionally the Great Refuge is a very strong tactics card that gives some much needed mobility to the faction allowing Black Bolt to effectively threaten the mid-line on round 1.

With the ability to move power around their characters, Inhumans can set up early plays that usually would take other affiliations multiple turns to set up. This can often lead to an uphill battle for most opponents whose turn 1 is unlikely to be as strong. Moreover this their card Terrigenesis has become somewhat of a terror giving access to a potentially huge victory point swing to close out the game.

The changes to mission selection may have hurt Inhumans slightly as they can't plan their first turn quite as well and they can no longer force an opponent onto a scenario such as Mutant Extremists Target US Senators which combines multiple civilian extracts on the table and a shooting gallery for Black Bolt.

Convocation

The Mystical Convocation for Marvel Crisis Protocol - Credit Alfred_Pharius

The convocation are a lesser played affiliation that still has strong results. With a 58% win rate across 101 rated games they are not to be underestimated.

Convocation could be considered the closest thing Crisis Protocol has to a 'skew' list. Almost all of their affiliated characters primarily use mystic attacks or are focused on mystic damage. This can bypass many of the common defensive abilities in the game such as Martial Artist.

Convocation came off well from the recent changes as many of them have an innately low physical defence making them vulnerable to terrain throws. The damage capped at 3 removes that weakness from them while their other strengths remain.

Though a relatively small affiliation a savvy player can use their tricks to safely take early extracts using the first half of their leadership ability to 'bump' back to safety before switching to an attrition game plan later on with the other half of the leadership.

Criminal Syndicate

Criminal syndicate - Credit Alfred_Pharius

The not-so-legitimate businessmen of Marvel Crisis Protocol round out the top 5 affiliations with a 54% win rate across 398 rated games.

Breaking down the win rates by leader, both Kingpin and Shadowlands Daredevil had strong showings so we will break them down individually as the play style is quite different.

For Kingpin the changes to collisions may have hindered his core characters as much of their damage came from big terrain throws. Staple Kingpin characters such as Rhino, Abomination and Kingpin himself all get slightly worse with these changes. On top of this the changes to mission selection make it so that opponents are very unlikely to have to play against Kingpin on 'Super Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate' which is their favorite crisis. Despite these setbacks the Kingpin primary game plan of sitting big potatoes on points and out-scoring opponents is always going to be strong and if you don't have the damage or displacement to get through them then they can easily steal wins.

Shadowlands Daredevil on the other hand still has a game plan that hasn't changed in the new landscape and remains strong. The card All According to Plan allows the criminals to freely daze or KO an opponent's characters while retaining priority on the following turn so that they can do it again before an opponent can activate.

Echo was released at the end of the year who has also made a splash in the competitive scene for the criminals. She is an affiliated long moving character which helps a Kingpin game plan steal objectives and she hits like a truck which helps the attrition sides of the list.

Best of the Rest

The majority of affiliations all sit around the 50% win rate, which shows a very healthy meta. There are multiple affiliations in this region such as Web Warriors, Wakanda and Avengers that are more than capable of winning events at the hands of a skilled player.

It could well be that some of the changes are too recent to see how the actual meta will settle, the new Web Warriors and Defenders boxes only recently arrived in Europe so have yet to make an impact on the competitive scene. The new mission selection process has made it more difficult to plan out turn 0 or turn 1 plays and players still seem to be finding their feet in this new landscape.

Final Thoughts

Some upcoming new releases have the potential to shake up the Meta in a big way. Blue Marvel and Spectrum bring with them a new affiliation with the Mighty Avengers and from what we have seen so far it could be a strong one.

The mission pack for sentinels should be released in the next few months and new missions could lead to the single biggest shake up in the upcoming year.

We also know that several characters will be repackaged this year which could lead to balance updates to some lesser known characters.

All of these things combined show that Marvel Crisis Protocol is in a healthy place moving forward and there are many exciting things to look into in 2026!

For more on Marvel Crisis Protocol take a look at our other articles here.

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Tags: Competitive Innovations | MCP | Crisis Protocol