Who Are The Blob & Pyro?

Fred Dukes (The Blob) & St. John Allerdyce (Pyro) are two mutants most commonly affiliated with the Brotherhood of Mutants. They are often found tussling with the pesky and often-in-the-way-of-their-plans X-Men.

The Blob has the common mutation of superhuman strength, endurance, durability, and resilience…but what makes him unique is his ability to make himself immovable. Oh…and he’s real big. Really…really…big.

Pyro’s mutation on the other hand grants him the ability to manipulate fire. While he cannot create fire himself, he can increase and decrease the intensity of fire, as well as shape it into other shapes. To do this, Pyro often wears some form of flamethrower suit in order to supply himself with a steady stream of FIRE.

So how do these two mutants translate into Marvel Crisis Protocol?

The Blob

In a game of MCP, standing on Secures is key. So having the ability to prevent your opponent from moving you off them is key – and this is where Fred really shines. Nothing Can Move The Blob! prevents your opponent from Pushing or Throwing him off a point. AMG however have put a cap on the effectiveness of this ability – as this only applies when the Push or Throw is a result of an attack. Superpower character throws are commonplace these days – and they’ll move Blob just fine. As will Advances that usually come from enemy mystic attacks (which you can expect to be coming Fred’s way, given his measly 2 mystic defence) and Places from characters like Thanos & Red Skull, Master of the World. On comic book paper, Blob would make for a fantastic MCP character for standing his ground. Unfortunately, AMG have decided that he only deserves to get halfway there.

However, Blob does see the funny side of this with the ability Ha Ha Ha, That Tickles! which is awesome. Paying 1 power to reduce damage is great. This does only work on attacks, but that is balanced out by the fact that if the attacker is within Range 3, they get pushed away short. This is going to frustrate a lot of characters.

Here we can see Magik using Limbo Step to get herself in range for a sweet double tap on our boy The Blob.

She deals a little bit of damage with her first Soulsword, 1 of which Fred reduced by paying 1 power for Ha, Ha, Ha, That Tickles! He then pushes her away Short and out of Range 2. Magik now has to make a choice between using a different attack that she is in Range for…or to simply walk onto the point. Blob stands his ground and gives his opponent a tough choice. Nice one Blob. 

Now this one is a lot of fun – Thunderous Splash. Range 3, with a guaranteed Place within 1 before damage is dealt is a lot of bonus movement for Mr Dukes here. Plus if he gets the Wild trigger, he pushes every character away. This is a great trigger for a Secure player like Blob here. NOTE however that this will affect ally characters also. But hey, maybe you can do this to help get Pyro out of danger (although he will suffer 1 damage while doing so…but I’m not sure Fred cares that much).

Pyro

Now let me just start this off with – I’m a BIG fan of Pyro. His kit does a lot more than it appears upon first read. So let’s break it down a bit.

Fire Blast and Flame Jet are both gainers (meaning they gain 1 power per attack, regardless of damage). This makes playing Pyro feel really smooth. Before he activates, you can plan out exactly how much power he is going to have based on the enemies in range. Note that Flame Jet is a beam that gives him 1 power per target hit. This is step 1 in planning out the perfect turn with Pyro.

The wild triggers on these attacks give out Incinerate. That’s nice right? But Fire Manipulation is where the real heat in Pyro’s kit lies. You’ll be forgiven for not being excited by this superpower on the first or second read, I know I wasn’t. But then it really hits home once you get it on the table. TLDR; whenever Pyro attacks someone who has Incinerate, he passes it onto another person within 2. This happens after the attack is resolved, meaning if you hit your Wild trigger to give out Incinerate – you can now pass it onto a second target within range 2. If a target already has Incinerate, even better – now you know that if you attack them, someone else within range 2 is going to also gain incinerate, without the need for a wild!

There is something cool (or…hot?) you can do with this when it comes to Pyro’s beam attack Flame Jet.

Now stay with me on this one. Here we have a sweet beam set-up. Pyro wants to hit everyone here while they have Incinerate so that he has a better chance at dealing extra damage. So we start with target 1, when the attack is resolved, the Incinerate will pass to target 2, who is within range 2. After that attack is resolved, the incinerate will pass to target 3 and voila, now everyone is incinerated! If we don’t go with this order and instead go with say, 3, then 1, then 2 – we may achieve the same effect, so long as we roll a wild against either target 3 or 2. But why risk it? Nobody likes hoping for a wild do they…

I’ve saved the real heat until last however. Firewall is an ability that is likely the main reason people bring Pyro to the fight. For 2 power (which remember, is easy to get a hold of with Pyro, as he has a range 4 gainer attack), he can give both Root and Slow to a target enemy character. These conditions are crippling to most models in MCP.

Quick Reminder: Root forces a model to pay 1 power before using any superpower and Slow forces a model to use the Short tool when making any movement.

The things that tend to make great models great are more often than not super powers. All the best characters in MCP have tight and effective power economies. Root knocks this off by a fair amount, often making models think twice about what they should now be spending their power on. Characters like Thor; Hero of Midgard, Malekith the Accursed and Juggernaut hate being Rooted. It makes all of their easy decisions that little bit harder and drains their effectiveness.

Point runners like Captain America; Sam Wilson, Spider-Woman, Black Widow and Shadowcat hate being Slowed. This also completely messes up their game plan.

The TLDR here is that Firewall messes up other models’ activations. Through practice, you’ll start to learn which characters hate this the most and you’ll know to send Pyro after them early. But if in doubt, here is my favourite Pyro tip;

Not sure what one of your opponent’s characters can do? Firewall them. Chances are, they’ll have a much harder time doing what they want to do because of it.

Tactics Cards

Now let’s not forget everyone’s favourite mutant misfit and close friend of The Blob…Toad! This beautiful pair have found themselves a home in Brotherhood of Mutants – and I for one am glad that AMG have acknowledged this with this flavourful card.

Essentially, when Toad deals damage, he and Blob can spend 1 each so that Blob can get a free movement and take a swing at someone himself.

Is it good? Not really. Toad’s job isn’t to deal damage – and you’re likely to miss this trigger at least once because of that. Is it fun to pull off? Hell yeah.

Now this card…THIS CARD is a good one. As we’ve gone over previously, Pyro excels at spreading the flames across the enemy team. He can guarantee his power gain, he can guarantee the incinerate spreading across the enemy team, now he can guarantee getting their extracts dropped. It’s beautiful.

Note that this can also be used just for the push alone. They don’t have to be holding (or in this case…have dropped) an Extract to suffer from the push. Either way, it’s going to result in a multiple VP point swing when played correctly. Plus the card art is awesome. I can imagine Pyro waltzing into a burning enemy team (burning from a fire that he likely created) and messing with their entire plan.

Set up a Pyro play this big and you’ll be reaching for the nearest bluetooth speaker to blast The Prodigy out of.

Affiliations

So this pair of mutants are obviously both affiliated with the Brotherhood of Mutants. That’s their home and they fit right in. Pyro works nicely under Magneto, who can ping him an extra power in Round 1 allowing him to double move and Firewall someone right away. The Blob has a Size 3 terrain throw which fits right in with Magneto’s gameplan of wrecking the board.

They also both fit nicely under a Mystique led Brotherhood. Mystique’s game plan is more crisis and point scoring focussed, which these guys both bring tools for. Pyro with Pyrotechnics for Extract steals and Firewall for denying the opposition the ability to run around scoring points so easily – and The Blob with his ability to sometimes stay on a point.

A noteworthy mention is also due here for Pyro in Avengers under Captain America. This leadership lets him use Firewall for 1 power…or boost his attacks with Stoke The Flames for 2 power. That’s some great value.

Conclusion

This pair is a worthy addition to any Brotherhood of Mutants roster. There is certainly more to their playstyles than what comes across in the first read of their cards, so I’d recommend getting them on the table and getting a feel for them.

Blob will stand his ground a fair amount for a 3 threat – and getting off the perfect Pyro play will leave you with a burning desire that yearns for more.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.