After yesterday’s article about Thanos on Wakandan Herbs, Pat Dunford from Across the Bifrost and I got chatting on Discord. After his suggestion that was edited in to that article, I realised we can do a similar thing, but using Red Skull’s Master of the Cosmic Cube instead of Thanos. That lead Pat and I to draw up an outline of a Cabal roster that had a different emphasis from a lot that I’ve seen.

The first thing it does is to swap the extracts it is trying to force from ones like Panic Grips City As Evacuation Efforts Continue! to the Wakandan Herb.

By using a 50mm base character, Red Skull and an L mover like Baron Zemo supported by Rocket Boots?! and Drop Off, you can score the Herb turn one:

The 50mm character deploys opposite the herb and moves twice and picks it up. Red skull walks forward, draw power from the cube and the uses Master of the Cube to move the Herb carrier Range 2. The L mover uses Rocket Boots?!, moves in to range 2 of the herb carrier and then uses Drop Off to deposit them on the altar.

A good choice for the 50mm base character is Hela, as she is size two and starts with two power thanks to being Asgardian so she can pay to interact with the herb and pay for Drop Off without needing Advanced R&D. She plays really nicely in a Cabal team, with extra power generation helping her make two Claim Soul attacks per turn.

Cabal have a great long mover in the form of Baron Zemo. Rocket Boots?! gives him the flight he needs to use Drop Off to get Hela on to the Altar after Red Skull has moved forward and Master of the Cubed her closer.

The best thing about this is, unlike the Thanos build, it only uses 11 of your 15 threat, allowing you to bring another 4 threat Cabal member: Killmonger, Loki or Ultron.

If you see a strong counter opposite, it is still a great beat-down list, with Zemo going in hard and Hela supporting from further away.

It has a big advantage in that Wakanda, Guardians and to extent Cabal lists that aren’t built like this really don’t want to see a ‘slow’ crisis like the Wakandan Herb: it’s a strong ‘meta’ choice right now.

You’ve got a lot of space and options in your roster already, and you can really make use of the Rocket Boots?! Drop Off combo. Proxima dropping Corvus is really good, as is Black Dwarf dropping M.O.D.O.K.

You probably want to take the traditional ‘fast’ extracts like Evacuees, Hammers or Cubes as your other two crises, especially to play against affiliations happier on slower crises like Avengers, Asgard and Black Order.

For secures, it’s hard not to like a Shotgun style list on Infinity Formula, but you can use Rocket Boots?! to swap Ultron for someone else. Hela spring to mind for Hammers, allowing you the same play detailed here, but with a character that contributes a lot more after turn one. Alternatively you can have Black Dwarf paired with M.O.D.O.K. for drop off fun, and Skull supporting your beater on the other side. AIM Lackeys makes Black Dwarf so much better.

You’ve already got Hela in your 10, and Loki is Cabal affiliated and answers a lot of questions being posed currently and Thor is all round great, so having an Asgardian team to pivot to on Meteors is a great asset. It also gives you access the Loki Pokey team for Gamma Shelters. Also with Rocket Boots?! in your 8 cards, Loki now Drop Off Thor, rather than the other way around. Loki with a Space Gem can also act as a replacement for Red Skull, so Asgard can pull off the same Round one Herb play, but without the need for Rocket Boots?! as Thor carries Hela on the last leg.

• Red Skull
• Baron Zemo
• Hela
• Killmonger
• M.O.D.O.K.
• Loki
• Thor
• Black Dwarf
• Mind Gem
• Space Gem

• Rocket Boots?!
• Drop Off
• Dark Reign
• AIM lackeys
• Cosmic Invigoration
• Usurp the Throne
• Sibling Rivalry
• Odin’s Blessing

Half of the time you are playing on Herbs (2/3 of the 50% of time you win priority, and 2/3 of half of the 50% you opponent wins priority). One sixth of the time you are playing a Rocket powered Shotgun on Inifinty formula. One sixth of the time you get to play Asgard in Meteors. And the final sixth you’ve got your second choice extract (hammers, evac).

It also covers bases really nicely. You have teams for ‘slow’ crises to drop in to rosters built to win fast, and teams built for fast crises to drop in to grindy matchups.

It probably needs a little refining, maybe around the tactic cards, but I think this roster has a lot of game purely based on the versatility of crisis it can play in to.