by Steve DiCarloHey folks, Steve DiCarlo here. Later this month, players competing in the Majestix Online Challengers will have the opportunity to win my 2020 Player of the Year map, Cave of the Cult! Whether you’re an Aladdin fan looking to throw your favorite superheroes into a makeshift Cave of Wonders or a competitive player searching for a battleground with some unique offensive and defensive advantages, this map is going to be a blast to play on!
When designing this map, I knew I wanted it to offer a unique landscape and a few strategic benefits for both players. If you choose the top half, you have a mountain of indoor elevation to climb up, which you can use either as a hiding spot or a sniper’s perch for the variety of IT: Elevation characters available in Bronze Age. Format staples like Green Arrow, Nick Fury and Astronomer will love to move or be carried up to the lamp, so they can fire away as characters approach their side of the map.
This side of the map also provides players with some podiums of blocking terrain they can hide behind. With a Wall construct, Molecule Man or even a Zero (Mandarin Ring), you can give your team some solid protection without having to use a costed action for Barrier.
Taking the lower half can be similarly beneficial for a number of teams. The Cave of Wonders was filled with piles of gold to dive into, so there is some starting area hindering terrain which can help characters with Stealth start out already protected from shooters without IT: Hindering. There’s plenty of blocking terrain to hide behind, and by using the Swap Construct ability on a Power Battery, you can swap a Wall construct between two characters to block off both openings to this section of the Cave… forcing your opponent to waste an action blowing out a square of blocking or to use Phasing/Teleport to move through it. Players can place a Dune Buggy, an Invisible Plane or some similar special terrain to block one of the two openings, to make it tricky for an opponent to engage your team (you can also do this if you choose the opposite side, to control your opponent’s movements if they hope to come to your side of the map).
At the center of the map, there’s water terrain which could be beneficial to a handful of viable Bronze figures. Flora Colossus can park in this water to increase its healing at turn’s end, or characters with the Dolphin symbol, such as Giganto & Namor, can use it to basically get a mini-Indigo Battery effect – the upcoming new rules state that characters with Swim will have “While occupying water terrain, this character can’t be targeted by opposing characters unless they are within 4 squares.”
There are a variety of teams and archetypes I think can thrive in my “Cave of the Cult,” but I wanted to give y’all a sample build of a Bronze Age team I can see people using with this map.
Cosmic +6
Astronomer with Bearer of the Infinity Gem 80
Astronomer with Bearer of the Infinity Gem 80
Dark Phoenix 30
Dark Phoenix 30
Groot 20
Molecule Man 30
Green Power Battery (w/ Ring, Wall construct, Decoy construct) 26
Jubilee Student ID 3 (XXS026 Jubilee)
No matter which side you’re put on, this team can do some serious work. If your opponent gives you the top side with the mountain, the Astronomers can stay parked in their starting area and snipe away during an opponent’s approach, or the Dark Phoenixes can Sidestep carry them up the mountain to extend their reach a bit. Molecule Man can be used to provide blocking to protect the team, and Groot’s Leadership can help take a token off of his teammates. His Walking Woods can be placed strategically where their Plasticity will make certain areas unreachable until they’re KO’d, and if that happens, there’s a ton of Retal to punish your opponent. The Dark Phoenixes can be moved up aggressively on Turn 2 and swap the Wall construct to lock the opponent in their section of the map if they didn’t leave their section of the Cave on Turn 1, forcing them to bust a wall in order to escape.
If you’re given the lower half, the Dark Phoenixes can carry the Astronomers up to each of the cave openings – there, they’ll have a fairly unobstructed view for their entire 11sq range, and between Molecule Man’s Barrier(s) and the Dark Phoenixes’ swapped Walls, you can easily protect them at the end of the turn.
Everyone on this team has either the Power Cosmic or Cosmic Energy TA, which grants Willpower… and in the new rules, WIllpower states “At the beginning of your turn, you may roll a d6. [5]-[6]: Remove an action token from this character.” There’s a possibility your team will be able to act practically every single turn without needing to stop to clear your figures!
With the Power Gem, the Astronomers are shooting at 12 ATK, 5 DMG with Probability Control to back them up… and even generic keywords like Cosmic will get Theme Team Probability Controls under the new rules! If you’re worried about opposing Retal, you can instead give one Astronomer the Mind Gem – they can’t Retal if you Mind Control their pieces to kill the Retal first! Mind Control also gets a huge boost under the new rules, as more powers can be utilized while a MC’d character is yours to wield.
Last but certainly not least is the Green Power Battery, which will become as overpowered as it used to be under the new rules, since many costed actions are back to including FREE actions within them. Play the team correctly, and you’ve got a strong offense, a sturdy Barrier-filled defense, and plenty of ways to hinder an opponent’s gameplan.
I hope everyone has as much fun playing in the Cave of the Cult as I had creating it! Thanks so much to Pat and Majestix for giving me the chance to make this, to the friends and teammates who gave me any help or inspiration with my MOC teams, and to all the opponents I played last year on route to winning Player of the Year. Keep on clixin!
