Third article in the series, looking at tier lists: this time Wakanda.

Definition of tiers:

A reminder of the tiers I use:

• S Tier – This character will make nearly all rosters for the affiliation.
• A Tier – A character you will always consider, and bring most of the time.
• B Tier – there are some good reasons to bring this character, but they may get left out.
• C Tier – this character fits a niche, but you need to have a plan to include them. C tier does not mean they are bad, but they need to be included for a specific, narrow, plan.
• D Tier – you are very unlikely to take this character.

S Tier

• Black Panther – The leader. Fast, durable, high damage, pushes: this is a fantastic character.
• Shuri – one of the main perks of playing Wakanda is getting Shuri in affiliation. As well as her auto pushes, adding more rerolls through Upgrades on top of the leadership impacts a lot of the rest of this list.
• Killmonger – with only four affiliated options, you can’t really afford to leave any out of your roster. Luckily Killmonger is a great character with a game-warping tactics card.
• Okoye – the fourth affialted character, and the cheapest. She really opens up list building options while still havi a valuable role to play.

A Tier

• Valkyrie – she has the power to use the leadership ability and the attack (dragon fang) that can get a lot out of it. Her throw is valuable if you are playing a control-oriented Wakanda list and her damage output is valuable if you are going for a damage focussed one.
• Vision – has a lot going for him. His beam pays for a use of the leadership on every attack, he has a cheap throw, he can fly to drop off, he can spend early round building power to spend on the leadership and he is great in the mirror match against Shuri.

B Tier

• Star-Lord – a ranged damage dealer who often has spare power to spend on the leadership.
• Hela – as with Star-Lord, once she gets a decent amount of power on her, she doesn’t have great ways to spend it – especially at range – so she can use it for the leadership.
• Doctor Octopus – a three cost with a throw. He fits well an area control focussed team, and his larger base and wall crawler are surpassingly useful.
• Venom – fits really well in a 17 threat team with the four Wakandans. His throws and push can play to their area control and his output can play to a damage focussed team.
• Ronan – another model that fits with all the Wakandans at 17. He dishes out good damage and has a wild effect on each of his three attacks that rerolls can help happen.
• Thor – A great model that only gets better with rerolls.
• Proxima Midnight – Fast, surprisingly durable heavy hitter that benefits from rerolls to increase the odds of getting that wild.
• Gamora – a harder hitting, squishier Black Panther. Can you really have too much of a good thing?
• Drax – another three cost thrower that can pitch in with damage if needed.
• Black Widow, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. – there’s a cute synergy where he automatic pistols give her a power so you don’t feel bad spending it on Wakandan leadership rerolls. She likes running around after Killmonger, interrogating the Usurped character.
• Hawkeye – rerolls on his status attacks make him more consistent.
• Black Dwarf – durable, hard hitting and has a big throw. He can impact either the area control game or damage dealing game.

C Tier

• Black Widow – a cheap option that has the speed to run objectives. Spending power to reroll dice that count blanks is pretty effective too. Bumped down to C as it can hard to justify two 2-threat characters in a roster and her Big Sister (Agent Widow) feels better and you can’t have both!
• Crossbones – he has some great anti-Shuri tech for the mirror-match. If you need someone to stay on a point, you might reach for him.
• Rocket Racoon – he likes to keep his power for Hadron Enforcer and it can be difficult to justify two 2-threat characters in a roster. But as cheap ranged blasters go…
• Groot – I could see a defensive Wakandan team using Vibranium Shielding to tough it out. Maybe he fits there.
• Corvus Glaive – only really if you are running Proxima Midnight. Helps a kill focussed team keep priority.
• Nebula – she already gets a bunch of rerolls against the people she needs to and again it can be hard to justify two 2-threat characters in a roster. But she does good damage for her cost.
• Hulk – already quite power poor, he often can’t afford the rerolls. If he’s here you probably have a Gamma Launch plan.
• Loki – another power hungry character. Normally you are better off using I am a God! rather than leadership rerolls. But that bubble of increasing power cost can be really useful.
• M.O.D.O.K. – with good built in rerolls already and no Red Skull to shift him about, he needs a specific plan to justify bringing him. AIM lackeys might be just that.
• Spider-Man – more pushes and throws, but at a higher threat cost than some threes and doesn’t compare favourably with Venom in damage dealing.
• Ultron – some use for dropping off Killmonger on Hammers, but limited other synergies.
• Winter soldier – every useful to make multi-affiliation rosters gel, but Wakanda doesn’t have any weak links.
• Ebony Maw – could fit as part of a power denial control strategy
• Red Skull – Master of the Cosmic Cube is a neat ability. Maybe you’ve got a plan where that is key.

D Tier

• Captain Marvel – built in rerolls on main attack and she wants to be playing Meteors secures which the affiliation doesn’t excel at.
• Iron man – really wants to save his power for Friday AI: more dice are inherently better than rerolls due to their ability to generate more dice on criticals.
• Zemo – the more rerolls you have, the less valuable they are and Proxima Midnight seems to fill a similar niche with better synergies.
• Captain America – with a bodyguard in affiliation a second one when the ability costs two power never feels necessary