Who Are Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver? 

Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) and Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) have gone through many different twists and turns when it comes to their backstory and origin. In the 60s, they were mutant twins born of unnamed parents. In the 70s, it was revealed that their parents were Whizzer and Miss America (I know right…who?!). In the 80s, it turned out Magneto and a human Sinto woman named Magda were their parents. In 2014, it was then revealed that Magneto in fact is not their biological father.

For most of their history they have been Mutants. However in 2015, it was revealed that they in fact got their superhuman abilities as a result of the High Evolutionary’s experiments combined with Wanda genetically being a Witch, born with natural magical abilities.

Yeah, it’s a lot. However, AMG have stated that exactly which version of the character they use is often a snapshot of one part of their life. In this case, it seems they’ve gone with the part where the siblings were helping out Magneto with his Brotherhood of Mutants antics. So that’s where we’ll start…

Scarlet Witch

Scarlet Witch’s Chosen of Cthon is a brilliantly thematic take on her ability to manipulate reality. It makes her a lot more consistent across the board, giving her an extra dice face to count as a success.

Her 3 / 4 / 4 defence stat line leaves a bit to be desired. With physical being by far the most common attack type in the game, she is prone to taking a beating (even while counting skulls on her defence rolls). This means that Wanda is best utilised as a turret. A big…scary…mystic attack throwing turret. Her attacks being Range 4 & 5 mean she can stand a little back from the action and hurt enemies for afar.

When she is damaged by an enemy effect however, she can utilise an extremely rare ability in Marvel Crisis Protocol. Curse will apply the Judgment effect on the character that dealt the damage. You’d be forgiven for needing a refresher on what exactly this effect does, as at the time of writing only two characters in the game can apply this effect; Wanda and Ronan The Accuser. 

Judgment: The character does not gain Power when suffering damage from enemy effects.

There are two main reasons why this effect is so good. Firstly, MCP is built around this idea of ‘clapping back’. Every time you take damage from an enemy effect, you gain power for it (unless otherwise stated). This means that even if half of your team get their teeth kicked in, you’re highly likely to return the favour next round when they all flip to their injured side, swimming with power.

Secondly, the downside of being an attrition team (that is, a team who has the game plan of turning their opponent into dust) is that you give your opponent this opportunity to clap back. If your plan is to KO Wolverine before he has a chance to hurt you, then dazing him and having him come right back with a bunch of power is a daunting prospect. But with Judgment, you can mitigate this!

The timing of when you apply this status effect is important. If a character has enough power to do what they want and only a few hit points left, it’s probably not worth using Curse. They will only lose out on a couple power and will flip to their injured side, which will remove Judgment.

However, applying Judgment to a character that has plenty of health left AND that you are about to beat up with the rest of your team is a great idea. If you can get a character to flip to their injured side with only 1-3 power, that’s a huge win for an attrition team. 

Scarlet Witch has a lack of mobility. As we mentioned before, she’s a turret. This means you only want to run her on Crises combinations that do not require much movement. To get the most effectiveness out of Wanda, you want to use as many of her actions attacking as possible. Because as we mentioned before, she has a good chance of dealing damage thanks to Chosen of Chthon.

Speaking of Skulls, the trigger Chaos Magic on her builder Hex Bolt allows her to apply several effects (one PER Skull by the way!); Bleed, Hex, Incinerate, Poison. 

Assuming you are using Scarlet Witch in an attrition team (which to be honest, you absolutely should be), two of these effects stand out: Hex and Incinerate. Both of these effects make it harder for your opponent to block the next attack coming their way. I would recommend choosing these effects before applying Bleed or Poison, as they make it easier for the next set of attacks to punch through the target’s defences. 

Side note: More and more characters have immunity to Incinerate these days. Wanda being able to apply Hex instead for these characters is very nice.

Quicksilver

Some characters in MCP have low floors but high ceilings. They don’t guarantee much, like a character such as Spectacular Spider-Man, who has a kit that is entirely self funded and doesn’t require too much luck for him to achieve what he wants to do – but when they go off, THEY. GO. OFF.

Pietro is one of these characters. The triggers on his builder Supersonic Strike have no limit. That’s right; none. This means that so long as Quicksilver keeps hitting his triggers (albeit on four dice, which can be tricky), he can keep doing stuff. Dash gives him a short advance and Velocity gives him another attack targeting someone else. Now, it’s going to get a bit nerdy here, but stick with me.

Both Dash and Velocity are triggered ‘After the attack is resolved’. This means the attacker (in this case, Quicksilver) can trigger them in whichever order they want. If Velocity is used, then a bunch of additional dice have now been rolled which can get even more triggers to happen. This means you essentially form a ‘stack’ (any Magic The Gathering fans here? Probably) of triggers for Quicksilver to work through.

You can attack X amount of times with Velocity, so long as you keep hitting the trigger. Then, when you stop hitting the trigger, you can Dash as many times as you hit that trigger throughout all of the attacks.

Hit the Dash trigger a couple times but have no-one in range for your Velocity trigger? Well, you can choose to Dash first, into range of someone that could be attacked and then choose to use your Velocity trigger. Obviously all of this is an enormous ‘What If?’, but it’s important to know exactly how this stack of triggers works in case you ever do hit it.

Speedster is an awesome ability. Note that it only works when he is NOT holding an extract however. This is an easy mistake to make with Quicksilver; don’t get caught out by it! Having an extra long move, in combination with the medium move granted automatically by Cyclonic Vortex, Quicksilver can have some insane activations when he has lots of power.

So how do we get that power? Well, in Quicksilver’s case I think it might actually be okay for him to take a beating to get there. Once Pietro has hold of an Extract, it can be quite annoying to get it off of him thanks to Can’t Catch Me and Supersonic Reflexes. 

Fun fact: Can’t Catch Me cancels an attack targeting Quicksilver if he can get out of Range or LOS. This removes any ‘to the next attack’ effects such as Juggernaut’s Unstoppable Momentum or Baron Zemo’s Master Swordsman. The attacker gets their action back, but they lose any effect that was about to be triggered by it – and if that effect can only be used Once Per Turn, then congratulations – you just avoided it.

So; I think Quicksilver is a fine choice to grab an Extract in Round 1. When he is eventually caught and had his Extract taken from him (most likely from being dazed), he can then flip to his injured side and spend all that power doing crazy things as listed above. Which leads us on to his Team Tactics Card…

Tactics Cards

When Quicksilver deals damage to an enemy holding an Extract, he may play this card. Note that this is ‘after the attack is resolved’, which means you can use any power gained by the attack itself. Pinging out hopeful Supersonic Strikes here and there is a fine tactic, as eventually – one will pop off and give you the power you need to use this card. Or maybe Quicksilver is sitting pretty on 6 power already? He can then Speedster in, Cyclonic Vortex (a more reliable damage dealing attack), Can I Borrow That? and be left with an action to run away.

Important Note: Can I Borrow That? only works on Asset Tokens. Meaning Extracts from Spider Infected Invade Manhattan and Mutant Extremists Target U.S Senators! will not work as they are not Assets. DO NOT take this card on those Crises.

One very cool thing that this card can achieve is stealing the Extract from any range. Meaning you can move to within max Range 3 from your target, hit them with Cyclonic Vortex, then move medium as part of that attack and then play Can I Borrow That? It doesn’t matter where you end up when you play this card, all that matters is that the attack dealt damage. Very cool.

Besides being from my all time favourite X-Men comic run ‘House of M’ (I even have this panel framed on my wall), this card is extremely powerful.

It’s identical to Ebony Maw’s Tactics Card Shh…and shuts off any Superpower used within 5 of Scarlet Witch for just 3 power. Knowing when to use this card is a huge skill in itself; it requires good knowledge of the most important superpowers for your opponent to use, whether they are ‘once per turn’ or not, and if not, whether they can afford to do it again.

It’s great at turning off any form of Charge from a model that isn’t in range for their attacks. It’s less good countering a Web Line from Ghost Spider; if she has an additional 2 power, she can just spend it to do it again.

It can be particularly dastardly against models that reduce incoming damage by 1, if doing so would result in a daze or KO. Bye bye Beta Ray Bill.

Now this card deserves an honorary mention. It isn’t necessarily powerful, but it has its uses. In a Magneto led Brotherhood of Mutants game, the key is to get as many attacks off with Magneto as possible. Quicksilver should be interacting with objectives in this game, Scarlet Witch should be dazing or KOing characters, meaning this card should have an opportunity to be played in game. 

But – and this is a big but – Magneto is very consistent with his killing. Most of the time – you are activating Magneto early and he is going to murder everything in his range (as he should…Magneto was right). So getting a second activation out of him, much later in the round, after hitting a Rube Goldberg Machine of a trigger – AND having targets nearby for him to hit is a LOT of hoops to jump through. You’ll get this off in maybe 50% of your games; and you’ll be happy you brought it in maybe 25% of those games. Cool! But probably not worth a Tactics card slot.

It’s worth highlighting this Brotherhood of Mutants staple card here. 90% of the time, I think you want to use it as a Magneto delivery service. You need him in the mix as soon as possible – in order to get off as many attacks as possible without moving. But as previously mentioned, Scarlet Witch also has that motive – making her a worthy target of Asteroid M in the early game, ensuring that she has lots of chances to dish out damage and status effects from the word go.

Affiliations

Brotherhood of Mutants

The siblings are obviously affiliated with the Brotherhood of Mutants. Wanda’s synergy with Magneto is obvious: hit stuff hard. She can also throw terrain, which works well with the leadership as it will power up the rest of the team. She does wrestle for a slot with one of the best 5 threats in the game however, Juggernaut. But there will be some situations where you want Wanda to go in blasting instead of Juggernaut. Or heck, at 20 threat, take Magneto, Juggernaut, Sabretooth, Apex Predator and Scarlet Witch.

Mystique-led Brotherhood, on the other hand, is a great home for Quicksilver. Mystique wants to run a more points focussed game. For this, she needs people who can steal extracts and hold onto them once they have them. Quicksilver excels here due to Can I Borrow That? and Can’t Catch Me.

Avengers

People that haven’t been reading comics since the 60s are probably more comfortable with the idea of this pair being a part of the Avengers, thanks to the MCU. But there are two Avengers leaderships in particular that make their kits shine.

Captain America, Steve Rogers brings an amazing leadership along for Quicksilver to follow. Giving Quicksilver access to Speedster in Round 1 is fantastic. Supersonic Strike being Range 3 means that under Steve, at the start of the game Pietro can Speedster and be within Range 3 of a target on the midline; allowing him to attack twice which will give him 2 opportunities to play Can I Borrow That? And take an Extract back off the opposing team when they least expect it.

Captain America, First Avenger also has a leadership the Maximoffs can both utilise very powerfully. Being able to change one die in their attack roll to any result means they can get off their signature abilities far easier. 

Scarlet Witch can change a dice to a skull in order to apply an additional status effect with Hex Bolt (and then get the power refunded, as she has likely dealt 1 additional damage with the attack).

Quicksilver can use it to start stacking the triggers on Supersonic Strike more reliably. Remember that this can only be done once per turn though, so it helps to know if you’re looking for an extra Dash or an extra Velocity before spending your power.

Inhumans

Quicksilver has done very well for himself here. He’s married up and bagged himself a princess in the form of Crystal of the Inhumans. This grants him access to this leadership:

Which gives him a neat trick in Round 1 that your opponent may not know to be possible.

Activating Crystal first means we can use the leadership to move 1 power from Black Bolt, onto Quicksilver – and then finish Crystal’s turn as usual.

Our opponent now goes and grabs an Extract. We then activate Quicksilver and use the leadership to pass another power from Black Bolt over to him.

Quicksilver can now Speedster, move once, grab an Extract from the other side of the board and move back to the midline. Note that Quicksilver can do this for either Extract back there if he is deployed bang in the middle of the board. Long movers are useful like that…

Conclusion

While these models are starting to show signs of their age (they were released very early on in MCP’s life span) – they still have a fair amount of relevance in today’s meta. Wanda counting skulls and having access to one of the best (and rarest) status conditions in the game is no joke. Pietro is an amazing tech piece alongside his card Can I Borrow That? and shines even brighter in affiliations that can throw a couple power his way.

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