MCP - Latest Convocation Learnings, Part 1
- Lex C
- Feb 27
- 10 min read
Updated: Mar 19
Note:
I'm assuming the reader has some familiarity with Marvel Crisis Protocol rules and terminology here (like knowing that TTC stands for Team Tactics Cards). If not, I'm write up an MCP primer if:
I have any readers
Enough of them ask.
To be clear, I like Convocation as an Affiliation.
No, they are not particularly competitive, but neither am I. 😊
Yes, in general, their physical defense is a joke. Yes, they don't hit particularly hard individually. And yes, a big part of their gameplay depends on their own characters getting KO'd on schedule.
But honestly, my first choice in any RPG is always to play a magic user. The Affiliation speaks to that primal need in me to be a wizard. 🤷♀️
On the plus side, they can totally ruin the Web Warriors' day. Or a Martial Artist's day. They are the only Affiliation who's leadership card doesn't count against your 5 card Squad limit (it does count against you 10 card Roster limit).
It's also easy to make a dual Affiliation roster with Defenders or Midnight sons. Pick an affiliation situationally.
Right now, though, I am playing a single Affiliation Convocation list.
I use Convocation as my 'palette cleanser' Affiliation. I run them after I've been playing a single Affiliation for a while and need to clear my head for my next Affiliation choice (which is usually whichever Affiliation the newest character belong to, I'm easily distracted by new shinies.
By the time I've gotten my head around Convocation again, I've removed the previous Affiliation's playstyle from my brain. Then I can start my next Affiliation with an after image of Convocation's interlocking patterns. I build my new Roster looking for synergies.
So, How Do They Play
Generally speaking, Convocation plays like a Rube Goldberg machine.
They rely on interlocking support for healing, placement, and dice stacking.
Their Leadership card, The Bar With No Doors has 2 separate Effects, depending on which side of the card is active. One side is a Place on damage, the other is a reroll on Mystic attacks or (any) defense that depends on the absence of an Activated token. Any Affiliated character can be their Leader after the card is played.
It would be remiss of me not to mention The Iron Bound Books of Shuma-Gorath. The card that is stapled to the leadership card. During the Power Phase, for 2 Power, spent by any Affiliated character. For this Round, whenever an Allied character is targeted by a Physical attack, the attack type can be changed to mystic.
For one round, their weakest defense becomes their strongest.
And when an Allied character is KO'd, the card returns to you hand and can be played again. You want your characters to be KO'd. Ideally on a round of your choosing.
There's a lot of moving parts here. When they all align, it's a phenomenally uplifting experience. When a single piece goes out of whack, it's a phenomenally disheartening experience.
The Roster
It's been a while since I've played them, at least two update cycles. So I created my Roster from scratch.
I went into Roster construction to with these ideas:
Play the updated characters (Clea, Magic, and Doctors Strange).
Use some Convocation TTCs that I don't usually use.
Make a more conscious choice about flipping the leadership card. Leave it on the bump side longer.
Go wide.
Score high initially, then coast on that.
Keep the support characters both safe and useful.
This is the roster I came up with. Thank you Cerebro for text.
Characters (10): Threat: 38
Ancient One (4)
Baron Mordo (3)
Blade (4)
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme (5)
Doctor Voodoo (4)
Doctor Strange (5)
Magik (3)
Wong (2)
Clea (3)
Dracula (5)
Tactics (10):
Brace for Impact (R)
Iron-Bound Books of Shuma-Gorath
Journey Through Limbo
Orb of Agamotto
Patch Up (R)
Plane of Pohldahk
Seance
The Bar with No Doors
Bane of Damballah
Book of Cagliostro
Secure Crisis (5):
Infinity Formula Goes Missing! (B, 17)
Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (D, 17)
Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate! (F, 20)
M'Kraan Crystal Gets Heroes Home! (, 19)
Lockdown! Security Systems Stymie Breakout (, 18)
Extract Crisis (6):
Fear Grips World as "Worthy" Terrorize Cities (D, 18)
Struggle for the Cube Continues (F, 17)
Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership (J, 20)
Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators! (L, 19)
Inhumans Deploy Advanced Weaponry (, 18)
Unexpected Guests Crash Royal Wedding (F, 17)
The Characters
I'm not going for a dual affiliation here, so I started with all 8 affiliated characters. That leaves me with 2 splashes.
Looking at the affiliated characters, four of the are primarily support (Wong, Clea, Mordo and OG Doctor Strange). Three are offensively and defensively solid for their threat, (Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Voodoo, and Magik). Four have some kind of displacement for themselves or others (Ancient One, Clea, Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme and Magik)
.
For my splashes then, I'm looking for strong attackers and/or tanks. I want my splashes to be large enough threats that they can draw some aggro from the rest of my team when Iron Bound Books is not active, and high enough defense that they survive survive that.
In this roster, I'm using Blade as my 4 threat monster and Dracula as my 5 threat monster.
Blade is pretty much a no brainer. His Mystic attacks can get some mileage out of Moons of Munnopor (the reroll side of the Leadership card). High Physical defense, defensive rerolls, a one cost Shake and situational healing mean he fits my splash requirements.
Dracula may seem unconventional, but he checks a lot of those boxes. High defense, powerful attacks, 2 sources of healing. He also has a clapback and enemy displacement. He is 5 threat, though. Having three five threats in my roster will impact my ability to play wide.
Team Tactics Cards
Brace for Impact is a solid choice. Patch Up is a good card, but, given the amount of healing in the roster, I might get more mileage out of Sacrifice.
The Bar With No Doors is the leadership, and Iron-Bound Books is a must have.
Séance and Journey Through Limbo are pretty much auto includes for their characters.
Four cards left. I usually take Seven Suns of Cinnibus and unaffiliated cards. This time, I'm making an effort to dive deep into affiliation cards, thus:
I have used Astral Ring and Wand of Watoomb in the past, but was unimpressed.
Crises
As I mentioned, I'm looking at grabbing points early. My crisis selection reflects that with higher scoring crises selected.
Extracts
I selected extracts with 4+ objectives. Pretty much standard for going wide. Didn't pick Spider Infected because I was worried about the displacement factor. Which is odd because I picked Skrulls, which uses a Physical defense roll to prevent displacement. My brain was not fully engaged, I guess.
Secures
I avoided pay to flips based on Physical Defense. Not surprising give Convocations defense stats. I avoided also (not completely successfully) secures with an interact. I anticipated being a bit power starved, and didn't want the extra drain. I also left out Fisk and Wedding Party. Clumping in 2 groups on the board doesn't do Convocation any favors.
After that, I leaned into closer secure layouts, for that interlocking support thing.
How It Worked
Meh.
It took me a couple of games to get back into the Convocation head space. When I did, the W/L was still not very good (though several games were tight). So, mixed results.
Given the smaller size of my gaming group, I was mostly against pitted against Warlock Guardians and Loki Asgard. Not ideal matchups for Convocation.
General Observations
I really didn't like D secures. They're more spread out than I would have liked for my play style.
B secures are better. There was a clear left/right split, which spread out my support, but not problematically.
I really need some dice fixing in this roster (aside from half the leadership).
Turn 2 Iron Bound Books was is the standard. The return to hand timing was problematic, as I expected it would be. It's weird to be more upset about my character living on one health than my opponent.
I didn't get the character quite placement right. Mordo and Clea I managed to position well, but OG Strange and Wong were usually out of place to be truly effective.
Three 5s in a roster is a lot.
I felt a lack of 3 threats. I wanted 4 when I only had 3.
Leader Selection
I used either Clea or Wong as my leader. I thought about making one of the beefier characters (Voodoo particularly) leader, but was concerned it might hamper their aggressive usefulness.
Clea was the stronger choice. She can hang back and still attack or provide support. Her gainer is range 3, spender is range 4 and her support and displacement superpowers are range 4. That far out, it's easy to her safe.
Wong is still a useful character, but fragile. It was more useful to overextend him to get some front line healing and dangle him as Iron Bound Books bait. Not what you want in an Affiliation leader.
The Bar With No Doors
I did well here. I resisted the urge to flip to Moons of Munnopor too early. Circle of the Cosmos was more useful in the early game for positioning, and it was only as the number of injured characters grew that I did the flip. It was a deliberate choice to slow down my opponent's attrition game. With limited effectiveness given my streak of abysmal defense rolls (no, really, it was my dice).
Buffed Characters
The Magik and Clea buffs worked out very well.
Clea was a solid leader and the decision to use Descendant of the Faltine never felt like a risky choice. And the play pattern was clear.
Round 1:
Descendant of the Faltine
Oshtur's Mighty Hand
Move to secure location (if damaged) or slightly back of the midline (if not)
Round 2+:
If undamaged, Descendant of the Faltine
If damaged, stay back and bank power, Demon Claws of Denak if in range
When powered, Talons of Farallah, Oshtur's Mighty Hand, or Icy Tendrils of Ickthalon (don't count on the triggers, though)
Magik's health buff (1 whole point!) and high (for Convocation) Physical defense made her a useful skirmisher.
Round 1:
Oshtur's Mighty hand
Medium move
Limbo step
Attack a target past the midline
Splashes
Blade didn't make it into a lot of rosters, and underperformed when he did. Some of the performance issue was the positioning I alluded to earlier. As for roster inclusion, I almost always went for a 3 threat instead.
Dracula did a lot of Dracula things, but I think there are overall better choices at 5 threat. It was the action economy that really hurt him there. Although:
Other Notables
Doctor Voodoo - Solid as always. Tanky, moderate damage output, plenty of Power, and inflicting the occasional Objective dropsy.
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme - Basically a 5 threat Scalpel. Damage output was good overall, not as good as I thought it would be, but solid. Positioning was never right for Shining Circle of the Seraphim. Also part of the 5 threat glut.
Surprisingly, The Ancient One had a couple of good games. Granted, Martial Artist and rerolls aren't particularly useful with 2 Physical defense, but with 5 Mystic on Iron Bound Books turns, wow!
The play pattern for her:
Turn 1 - Positioning!
Turn 2 - Iron Bound Books and Astral Strike
Turn 3+ Mists of Hoggoth and movement to gets her to an unattended objective
Tactics Cards
Book of Cagliostro
Made it into my squad a couple of times, but I found it still in my hand at game's end. Removing an Activated token is nice, but it requires convivial placement and 6 total power to use. If I had the characters with power, the placement was wrong. If I had the placement, I had other uses for the power (healing, spenders and such).
The card is a prime candidate for a swap out.
Bane of Damballah
Root on a stick for one power rules. Though I did find the card situational. It's best use on the secures that group enemies up. Mayor Fisk, Wedding Party, and maybe Lockdown are prime candidates. Certainly useful for those 2 Secure scenarios I dread.
Granted, I was playing against tall teams. I can see more use against wide teams. A keeper, though.
Orb of Agamotto
Another good one. Most of the time, only one character took advantage of it, but for those characters, it was clutch. Very useful for claiming an open secure, or bouncing an at-risk character to safety.
Plane of Pohldahk
The Convocation equivalent of Dark Reign. It give rerolls for all allied characters (Dark Reign is only allied Cabal characters) and for Mystic attacks only (Dark Reign is all damage types). In both cases, the Power is spent by an affiliated character, but there is no range restriction.
I used it for spot removal. Usually in conjunction with Ferocity of Cyttorak or Talons of Farallah (or both) because the extra dice give you more rerolls.
Interestingly enough, whenever it was used, the target didn't last through the current character's activation. I never had a case where more than one of my characters benefited. That's not a drawback, mind.
Conclusions
As I expected, Convocation is a brain warp faction. Lots of little things to remember and execute.
Overall, I didn't (always) have the positioning to get the most out of the faction. Even with Vapors of Dormammu. Scalpel of Strange, and Magik. I needed more of a hit and run strategy on non-Iron Bound Books Rounds.
I didn't put enough thought into my Secure Crises. They felt like bad layouts for Convocation. I have to handle those bad layout if I get extracts, of course, but I'd like to feel like a winner when using my Secures. Needs revision.
Three 5 threats wasn't a problem, per se, except that I didn't have enough 3 threats. I found myself stuck in roster building chasing second best options. I think 4 threes would have given me more variety. After all, 4 threes and one 5 is 17.
Two things I found myself wishing for were additional dice fixing (even with the Moons of Munnopor) and a Body Guard.
I don't think Dracula is the right call here. His lack of action economy was a problem, and he rarely got an effective clapback. Yeah, Hypnotic Stare got use, but a character throw would have been just as effective.
I'm looking at Namor as choice for Drac's slot. He's a long mover with charge. No healing, but a built in reroll (that he gives to his friends). Armies of the Deep covers a lot of useful ground. Prince's Protection is a good swap for Book of Cagliostro, too.
Action economy, rerolls and a body guard. Seems like a solid fit.
I'm going to let that percolate, make some changes, and see what happens.
I'll get back to you.
-- Lex
Second part live:
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