Looking for a leader who shoots space blasters, flies around the battlefield and turns dumb luck into a game plan? Then maybe it’s time to blast off with Star-Lord!

Today we’re breaking down what makes Star-Lord one of the most slippery and efficient hit-and-run leaders in Marvel Crisis Protocol, from his mobility and ranged pressure to how he enables the Guardians of the Galaxy to play fast, loose, and on their own terms…usually.

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Star-Lord

Let’s start with Peter Quill’s kit itself. Element Gun being Range 4 and Energy is great. Energy is a much sought after attack type these days - and you definitely want to keep your leader out of harms way. Hit And Run helps keep Star-Lord relevant while standing at the back. He can also rotate around pay-to-flip Secures nicely while still blasting. It offers a great deal of flexibility while keeping him safe.

Full Auto is a fantastic attack. Most characters tend to sacrifice some Range in exchange for extra dice on their spenders - but not Star-Lord! He can fire this bad boy off from way at the back and then dish out Status Effects per Wild in the attack roll. That’s a ton of output fired out from safety and for just 3 power. It’s great!

Plucky Attitude is a lot of fun. It doesn’t come up much, but it feels very Peter Quill flavoured when it does. Enjoy it!

Now…let’s move onto the leadership.

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Leadership

THIS is where the real value starts to show.

First off, 3 threat leaders are a valuable commodity in and of themselves. Especially when Guardians Of The Galaxy have an affiliated 2 threat in the form of Rocket Raccoon. This means that you can take a core of Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon & another 3 threat like Groot and then splash any unaffiliated monster you like.

That’s where Winging It tokens come in. Giving out super flexible re-rolls is just plain good. But being able to give them to unaffiliated models is what really makes this leadership tick. Star-Lord himself, Rocket Raccoon, Gamora, Cosmic Ghost Rider and Agent Venom love a Winging It token when attacking. Beta Ray Bill and Groot love using them defensively. But whenever the latest ‘above-the-curve’ character is terrorising the meta, slamming them in Guardians of the Galaxy and giving them a Winging It token is always going to feel good.

Making a Splash

Here I’m going to run you through some of the latest meta splashes currently haunting the game at the time of writing.

If you’re reading this from the future and these characters have been nerfed, fear not. It’s super simple: Does this character hit really hard or roll lots of defence dice? Then chances are they’ll love a Winging It token.

Shang-Chi character card MCP

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Shang-Chi

With a 6 dice builder and with a powerful Stagger trigger, hunting for just the dice results he wants really helps Shang-Chi punch above his weight. Not to mention he brings some much needed displacement to a Guardians of the Galaxy roster.

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Ultimate Spider-Man

Having Miles Web Swing in to make a 7 dice attack sure gets scarier when you add a Winging It token into the mix. But he can also use his token to re-roll Skulls on his defence & dodge dice. So he makes slightly better use out of them than most.

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

Echo

One thing that most Guardians rosters lack are characters that charge your opponents home Secures. The Guardians tend to lean towards a gun-line style of play, so splashing a charging character as effective as Echo is a great shout.

The added dice quality offered by Death Dancer helps the Winging It tokens go the extra mile.

Infinity Gem: Power

Image courtesy of Atomic Mass Games

I completely forgot this card was a part of Star-Lord’s card until I took a closer look at it for this article. Turns out - he can take this card at the cost of +1 threat!

I’ll keep this short: Don’t bother.

A large part of what makes Star-Lord so good is the fact that he’s a 3 threat. Adding this Infinity Gem to his card will make him a 4 threat. He doesn’t exactly struggle with power generation and all it really gives him is access to Hit and Run on Round 1, plus maybe a couple of extra Full Auto attacks in the game. Which is cool…but not worth an additional threat.

Feel free to experiment with it! But this character has been in the game for years…and there’s a reason why I forgot he could take this.

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