Marvel Crisis Protocol Review: Yondu Udonta

The blue-skinned Ravager Pirate Yondu Udonta has been a model that I have been wanting to be in the game since I started my MCP journey by diving head-first into the Guardians of the Galaxy.  In the MCU, he is one of the standouts in an incredible trilogy of movies largely because of the job done by Michael Rooker, and in the comics, he has a very interesting history.  But that will be the subject of a future article.  For now, let’s take a dive into Yondu and what he brings to Marvel: Crisis Protocol and look at some possible homes for him outside of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Character Card

The first bit of information that jumped out at me on Yondu’s card is his threat value of 4.  Guardians already have a pretty good stable of affiliated 4-threats (Agent Venom, Beta Ray Bill, and Gamora), and the 4-threat level in MCP in general is a pretty crowded space.  Threat aside, he has pretty standard defenses of 3-4-3 and 6 health on his healthy side (5 on his injured side).  He is also size 2 and moves M.  All pretty standard.  His attacks and superpowers, however, are where my interest really got piqued. 

His basic builder Yaka Arrow is a fairly standard 5 dice, but has a fantastic Range of 5, which means he can pretty reliably build power at a very safe distance.  It also has a fantastic Wild trigger to had out Slow to your target.  This can be a huge boon to Guardians players by helping prevent opponents from running away from their ranged attacks.  In addition to this, he has a spender attack called Whistle While You Work. For 3 power, you get a 6 dice, Range 4 attack with two triggers.  The first one is a standard Pierce if you roll a Wild, and the second is a Hit-Wild trigger called Yaka Mastery.  If you hit that trigger, you can make another Whistle While You Work attack without paying the Power Cost that is within R3 of the original target and has not already been targeted by this attack.  Importantly, there is no text that says you can’t keep repeating this as long as you keep hitting the trigger (and still have untargeted enemies within R3 of the target).  I’m a big fan of this attack, but I don’t know how effective this will be in practice. 

Additionally, Yondu has three superpowers to choose from.  He has a standard Hit and Run and Quickdraw (similar to Martial Prowess, but operates outside of Range 2 instead of within Range 2).  His third superpower, however, is really spicy.  For 1 Power, Yondu can use Ravager Code: Steal Everything which is essentially Mission Objective in superpower form.  In practice, I think Yondu players will want to use this to keep objectives when an ally drops them instead of an enemy character because Yondu really doesn’t want to be within R2 of enemy characters.  But this superpower is huge, and I think is going to be a contributing factor to seeing Yondu splashed outside of affiliation. Lastly, he has the innate superpower The Pirate Way, which allows him to reroll 1 die in his attack and defense rolls, and since it has it’s own unique name, it will stack with other re-rolls you may have in your roster, including a Winging It token.  

Tactics Card

Yondu also comes with an unaffiliated Team Tactics Card, Plundered Goods.  It costs 2 Power, and critically, it lasts for the entire Round.  It also has two separate effects that are always on, too.  The first allows allied characters to re-roll 2 attack dice when they target an enemy who is a) within R3 of Yondu and b) holding 1 or more objective tokens.  The second clause states that Yondu gains an additional power anytime he attacks an enemy that is contesting or holding an objective token.  Overall, I think this card has a lot of utility if you play it on that one Round where you have to daze/KO models.  The problem with this card, however, is that Guardians have a lot of good cards to choose from for your 5, and I just don’t know if this makes the cut.  

Possible Roster Spots

I think the Range of Yondu’s attacks make him a viable choice in just about any affiliation, especially with his builder handing out Slow, which can effectively be a Stagger for teams that absolutely can’t be slowed.  I don’t think you will see him splashed everywhere like fellow Guardian Bill was, but I don’t think you’ll get funny looks for bringing him outside of affiliation, either.  Within Guardians, I think he pairs really well with Agent Venom as anti-Web Warriors tech pieces because they like to cover a lot of ground and modify their dice.  For me personally, I have been playing a lot of Professor X-led X-Men, and I think he will slot in there really nice and I think will be the first place I test him out. What do you think? What are your plans for Yondu? Let us know in the comments below!

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