NashCon is one of the larger real life events, held in Nashville this year they attracted 63 players, with 5 rounds of swiss, followed by a cut to top 8, with locked lists from the previous day. Here are what was being played.
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Affiliations
The event was run in Longshanks, which has (mostly) freeform roster submission and self-reported affiliations – which is what these stats show.
| Affiliations | Rosters | % |
| 1 | 42 | 67% |
| 2 | 19 | 30% |
| 3 | 2 | 3% |
Dual affiliations seem a lot more popular than in the recent Season 8 of the online meta (21%), but 6 of the duals are with Cabal, which may be a reflection of the popularity of a certain tiger-rider.
| Affiliation | Rosters | % |
| Avengers | 16 | 25% |
| Cabal | 10 | 16% |
| Criminal Syndicate | 7 | 11% |
| Black Order | 6 | 10% |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 6 | 10% |
| Convocation | 5 | 8% |
| Brotherhood | 4 | 6% |
| Defenders | 4 | 6% |
| Web Warriors | 4 | 6% |
| Winter Guard | 4 | 6% |
| Asgard | 3 | 5% |
| X-men | 3 | 5% |
| A-force | 2 | 3% |
| Dark Dimension | 2 | 3% |
| Midnight Sons | 2 | 3% |
| Wakanda | 2 | 3% |
| X-force | 2 | 3% |
| Unaffiliated | 2 | 3% |
| Inhumans | 1 | 2% |
| Spider Foes | 1 | 2% |
| S.H.I.E.L.D. | 0 | 0% |
Avengers are popular in this set of lists. Two good leaders, popular characters and a big green affiliated beat-stick adds up to a lot of rosters. The lack of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a bit of a surprise, but there isn’t much difference between zero rosters and a handful: I’m not reading anything in to this.
Characters
| Character | Rosters | % |
| Black Cat | 24 | 38% |
| Toad | 22 | 35% |
| Hulk | 21 | 33% |
| Winter Soldier | 19 | 30% |
| Black Panther | 17 | 27% |
| Malekith the Accursed | 17 | 27% |
| Doctor Voodoo | 16 | 25% |
| Juggernaut | 16 | 25% |
| Hood | 13 | 21% |
| Wong | 12 | 19% |
| Baron Zemo | 11 | 17% |
| Lizard | 11 | 17% |
| Loki God of Mischief | 11 | 17% |
| Luke Cage | 11 | 17% |
| Mystique | 11 | 17% |
| Bullseye | 10 | 16% |
| Captain America (Sam Wilson) | 10 | 16% |
| Ghost Rider | 10 | 16% |
| Iron Man | 10 | 16% |
| Vision | 10 | 16% |
| Baron Mordo | 9 | 14% |
| Captain America (Steve Rogers) | 9 | 14% |
| Shadowland Daredevil | 9 | 14% |
| Rogue | 9 | 14% |
| Corvus Glaive | 8 | 13% |
| Domino | 8 | 13% |
| Nebula | 8 | 13% |
| Rocket Raccoon | 8 | 13% |
| Angela | 7 | 11% |
| Enchantress | 7 | 11% |
| Iron Fist | 7 | 11% |
| Medusa | 7 | 11% |
| Ronan the Accuser | 7 | 11% |
| X-23 | 7 | 11% |
| Black Swan | 6 | 10% |
| Ghost-Spider | 6 | 10% |
| Groot | 6 | 10% |
| Killmonger | 6 | 10% |
| Magik | 6 | 10% |
| Okoye | 6 | 10% |
| Proxima Midnight | 6 | 10% |
| Scarlet Witch | 6 | 10% |
| Star-Lord | 6 | 10% |
| Thanos, the Mad Titan | 6 | 10% |
| Thor Prince of Asgard | 6 | 10% |
| Ancient One | 5 | 8% |
| Black Dwarf | 5 | 8% |
| Black Widow | 5 | 8% |
| Crimson Dynamo | 5 | 8% |
| Doctor Strange | 5 | 8% |
| Doctor Strange Sorcerer Supreme | 5 | 8% |
| Ebony Maw | 5 | 8% |
| Heimdall, The All-Seeing | 5 | 8% |
| Hulkbuster | 5 | 8% |
| Red Guardian | 5 | 8% |
| She-Hulk | 5 | 8% |
| Amazing Spider-man | 4 | 6% |
| Captain Marvel | 4 | 6% |
| Gamora | 4 | 6% |
| Hawkeye | 4 | 6% |
| Kingpin | 4 | 6% |
| Moon Knight | 4 | 6% |
| Ms. Marvel | 4 | 6% |
| Spider-Man (Miles Morales) | 4 | 6% |
| Supergiant | 4 | 6% |
| Ursa Major | 4 | 6% |
| Valkyrie | 4 | 6% |
| Ant-Man | 3 | 5% |
| Bob Agent of Hydra | 3 | 5% |
| Darkstar | 3 | 5% |
| Gambit | 3 | 5% |
| Magneto | 3 | 5% |
| Skurge the Executioner | 3 | 5% |
| Storm | 3 | 5% |
| Beast | 2 | 3% |
| Blade | 2 | 3% |
| Cable | 2 | 3% |
| Clea | 2 | 3% |
| Crossbones | 2 | 3% |
| Deadpool | 2 | 3% |
| Dormammu | 2 | 3% |
| Green Goblin | 2 | 3% |
| Honey Badger | 2 | 3% |
| Mysterio | 2 | 3% |
| Punisher | 2 | 3% |
| Red Skull | 2 | 3% |
| Sabretooth | 2 | 3% |
| Shuri | 2 | 3% |
| Taskmaster | 2 | 3% |
| Ultron | 2 | 3% |
| Venom | 2 | 3% |
| War Machine | 2 | 3% |
| Black Bolt | 1 | 2% |
| Black Widow, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. | 1 | 2% |
| Colossus | 1 | 2% |
| Crystal | 1 | 2% |
| Doctor Octopus | 1 | 2% |
| Drax the Destroyer | 1 | 2% |
| Hela Queen of Hel | 1 | 2% |
| Kraven the Hunter | 1 | 2% |
| Lockjaw | 1 | 2% |
| M.O.D.O.K. | 1 | 2% |
| Nick Fury | 1 | 2% |
| Omega Red | 1 | 2% |
| Quicksilver | 1 | 2% |
| Daredevil | 1 | 2% |
| Sin | 1 | 2% |
| Viper | 1 | 2% |
| Carnage | 0 | 0% |
| Cassandra Nova | 0 | 0% |
| Cyclops | 0 | 0% |
| Elektra | 0 | 0% |
| Jean Grey | 0 | 0% |
| Mister Sinister | 0 | 0% |
| Spider-Man (Peter Parker) | 0 | 0% |
| Wasp | 0 | 0% |
| Wolverine | 0 | 0% |
Black Cat tops the charts for the first time. This feels to me like a reaction to expecting a lot of Malekith; not only does she help out the extract game, but acting as a stagger-bot on big beaters like Malekith, Hulk or a Reality Thanos can swing games. Toad is not a surprise in second, but Hulk has really rocketed up. Partly that’s due to all the Avengers, but there are 11 Hulks not in Avengers – so 5 Avengers players didn’t opt for him – so that’s not all of it. Winter Soldier is finding his way in to more and more lists.
Some people were expecting a LOT of Malekiths, as he is an exciting model, both in what he can do on the table and how he looks there. 17 isn’t crazy levels, but it is high up: joint 5th with Black Panther.
Wong is a bit of a surprise. More popular than Zemo, Lizard or Bullseye? I doubt many would have predicted that!
I know the guys over at the Professional Casual Network look at these sort of stats, and one of their number, Tim, was at NashCon playing a number of the “Power bottom 10” under Cable’s leadership; well he’s going to have to write a new list using the new power bottom 9 from here, maybe featuring a core of Cyclops, Jean and Wolverine. If only they had an unpopular tactics card…
Crises
There may be slight biasing towards certain crises in real life events where you are limited to the crises from the packs you buy. In particular, its pretty safe to assume everyone owns the core crises, but they may not have access to all of the crises they might want.
| Secure | Rosters | % |
| Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest | 22 | 35% |
| Demons Downtown! Has Our Comeuppance Come Due? | 21 | 33% |
| Intrusions open across city as seals collapse | 21 | 33% |
| Mutant Madman Turns City Center Into Lethal Amusement Park | 21 | 33% |
| Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 | 17 | 27% |
| Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate! | 16 | 25% |
| Portals Overrun City with Spider-People | 14 | 22% |
| Infinity Formula Goes Missing | 13 | 21% |
| S.W.O.R.D. Establishes Base on Moon’s Blue Area | 12 | 19% |
| Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians | 10 | 16% |
| Terrigen Clouds Sweep Over City | 9 | 14% |
| Mayor Fisk Vows to Find Missing Witnesses | 7 | 11% |
| Cosmic Invasion! Black Order Descends on Earth | 6 | 10% |
Gamma, Demons, Intrusions: looks like attrition is on the menu in Tennessee. Madmen also features, with a lot of people thinking they have good game on that or that it helps to stymie certain lists (Tall beaters or Kingpin led criminal syndicate might be in their minds).
| Extract | Rosters | % |
| Fear Grips World as “Worthy” Terrorize Cities | 33 | 52% |
| Spider-Infected Invade Manhattan | 33 | 52% |
| Research Station Attacked! | 22 | 35% |
| The Montesi Formula Found | 22 | 35% |
| Alien Ship Crashes in Downtown | 18 | 29% |
| Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership | 18 | 29% |
| Struggle for the Cube Continues | 18 | 29% |
| Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators | 17 | 27% |
| Deadly Legacy Virus Cured? | 8 | 13% |
Hammers has always been popular, but Spider-Infected is right up with it. This may be an element of the core-set bias, but it’s possible this is a real meta response to beater lists: they provide a lot of extracts to score giving good scoring tempo to score out before the attrition can weigh too heavily but, vitally, the beatstick can only hold one of them. Legacy Virus is significantly less popular than anything else.
Tactics Cards
The rosters weren’t submitted in a standardised way, which made cleansing the data a time intensive task; of the 630 tactics cards I was able to account for all but 3 of them, so there are a small number missing from this analysis, but it’s almost complete.
Brace continues to shine out amongst the restricted cards. A number of people have wondered about Follow Me joining it on the restricted list in the not-too-distant future, but mission objective is more popular than it in this event. People are seeing what fall back offers in this attrition heavy meta
| Brace for Impact | 47 | 75% |
| Mission Objective | 31 | 49% |
| Follow Me | 28 | 44% |
| Patch Up | 24 | 38% |
| Fall Back | 22 | 35% |
| Marked for Death | 19 | 30% |
| Heroes for Hire | 17 | 27% |
| Avengers Assemble | 16 | 25% |
| Do You Know Who I Am? | 16 | 25% |
| Midnight Phantasmagoria | 16 | 25% |
| Indomitable | 16 | 25% |
| Escort to Safety | 14 | 22% |
| Deception | 11 | 17% |
| Recalibration Matrix | 11 | 17% |
| Advanced R&D | 10 | 16% |
| Smash | 10 | 16% |
| Deal with the Devil | 9 | 14% |
| Face Me | 8 | 13% |
| Ricochet Blast | 8 | 13% |
| X-Ceptional Healing | 8 | 13% |
| Sacrifice | 7 | 11% |
| All According to Plan | 6 | 10% |
| Bar with no Doors | 6 | 10% |
| Dark Reign | 6 | 10% |
| Deadly Duo | 6 | 10% |
| Execute | 6 | 10% |
| Helios Laser Bombardment | 6 | 10% |
| Journey through Limbo | 6 | 10% |
| The Black Bifrost | 6 | 10% |
| Usurp the Throne | 6 | 10% |
| Versatile Strategy | 6 | 10% |
| Warpath | 6 | 10% |
| Blood to Spare | 5 | 8% |
| Comrade’s Keeper | 5 | 8% |
| Crew of the Milano | 5 | 8% |
| First of the Black Order | 5 | 8% |
| Inspiring Monologue | 5 | 8% |
| Monkey Brain is Lizard Home | 5 | 8% |
| Mothership | 5 | 8% |
| No Matter the Cost | 5 | 8% |
| Shhh… | 5 | 8% |
| Trip Up | 5 | 8% |
| We are Groot | 5 | 8% |
| Iron-Bound Books of Shuma-Gorath | 5 | 8% |
| All Webbed Up | 4 | 6% |
| Aunt May’s Wheat Cakes | 4 | 6% |
| Cruelty | 4 | 6% |
| Disarm | 4 | 6% |
| Hood’s Gang | 4 | 6% |
| No More Mutants | 4 | 6% |
| One-Two Punch | 4 | 6% |
| Spider-Tracker | 4 | 6% |
| Asteroid M | 3 | 5% |
| Black Onslaught | 3 | 5% |
| Eyes on the Prize | 3 | 5% |
| First Class | 3 | 5% |
| Gamma Launch | 3 | 5% |
| Magnetic Refraction | 3 | 5% |
| Meet My Executioner | 3 | 5% |
| Odin’s Blessing | 3 | 5% |
| Rainbow Bridge | 3 | 5% |
| Seance | 3 | 5% |
| Second Wind | 3 | 5% |
| Sovereign Strike | 3 | 5% |
| The Whims of Chaos | 3 | 5% |
| Till the End of the Line | 3 | 5% |
| Wand of Watoomb | 3 | 5% |
| Winter Rush | 3 | 5% |
| Plane of Pohldahk | 3 | 5% |
| Bats the Ghost Hound | 2 | 3% |
| Cosmic Invigoration | 2 | 3% |
| Dark Restoration | 2 | 3% |
| Doomed Prophecy | 2 | 3% |
| Grievous Wounds | 2 | 3% |
| Jonathan the Unstoppable | 2 | 3% |
| Kick ‘Em While They’re Down | 2 | 3% |
| Lethal Protector | 2 | 3% |
| Lovable Misfits | 2 | 3% |
| No Mercy | 2 | 3% |
| Orb of Agamotto | 2 | 3% |
| Pentagram of Farallah | 2 | 3% |
| Price of Failure | 2 | 3% |
| Pym Particles | 2 | 3% |
| Sibling Rivalry | 2 | 3% |
| Siege of Darkness | 2 | 3% |
| The Age of Ultron | 2 | 3% |
| The Grand Illusion | 2 | 3% |
| Wakanda Forever | 2 | 3% |
| Psychic Shield Device P.S.D. | 2 | 3% |
| A-Force Assemble! | 1 | 2% |
| Attilan Rising | 1 | 2% |
| Astral Ring | 1 | 2% |
| Bird of Prey | 1 | 2% |
| Can I Borrow That? | 1 | 2% |
| Cat and Mouse | 1 | 2% |
| Chimichangas | 1 | 2% |
| Cruel Tutelage | 1 | 2% |
| Dark Aura Manifestation | 1 | 2% |
| Dark Empowerment | 1 | 2% |
| Dark Past | 1 | 2% |
| Heave Ho | 1 | 2% |
| Highway to Hell | 1 | 2% |
| Illicit Tech | 1 | 2% |
| Inhuman Royal Family | 1 | 2% |
| K’un-Lun Training | 1 | 2% |
| Last-Minute Save | 1 | 2% |
| Mind If I Cut In? | 1 | 2% |
| Pretty Sneaky Sis | 1 | 2% |
| Professionals | 1 | 2% |
| Psychic Shockwave | 1 | 2% |
| Special Delivery | 1 | 2% |
| Stalwart Determination | 1 | 2% |
| Terrigenesis | 1 | 2% |
| Thunderwave | 1 | 2% |
| To Me My X-Men | 1 | 2% |
| Vibranium Shielding | 1 | 2% |
| Well-Laid Plans | 1 | 2% |
| Shadow Organisation | 1 | 2% |
| Fusion Caster | 1 | 2% |
| A Better Tomorrow | 0 | 0% |
| A.I.M Lackeys | 0 | 0% |
| Agents of S.M.A.S.H. | 0 | 0% |
| Anger Management | 0 | 0% |
| Bane of Damballah | 0 | 0% |
| Banishment | 0 | 0% |
| Battlefield Medicine | 0 | 0% |
| Bear Hug | 0 | 0% |
| Blood Red and Personal | 0 | 0% |
| Book of Cagliostro | 0 | 0% |
| Bounty Hunters | 0 | 0% |
| Carbonadium Synthesizer | 0 | 0% |
| Carnage Rules | 0 | 0% |
| Charming Thief | 0 | 0% |
| Children of the Atom | 0 | 0% |
| Cloning Banks | 0 | 0% |
| Daughters of Thanos | 0 | 0% |
| Defensive Prototype | 0 | 0% |
| Difficult to Please | 0 | 0% |
| Dirty Work | 0 | 0% |
| Elemental Infusion | 0 | 0% |
| Eye in the Sky | 0 | 0% |
| Fan Club | 0 | 0% |
| Fastball Special | 0 | 0% |
| Fearful Symmetry | 0 | 0% |
| Forced Extraction | 0 | 0% |
| Hard Reset | 0 | 0% |
| Heavy Firepower | 0 | 0% |
| Helicarrier Strike | 0 | 0% |
| Jean!!! | 0 | 0% |
| Life Model Decoy | 0 | 0% |
| Making a Ruckus | 0 | 0% |
| Magnetic Crush | 0 | 0% |
| Mental Domination | 0 | 0% |
| Neoenetic Recombinator | 0 | 0% |
| Pardon Me Sugah | 0 | 0% |
| Power of the Cosmos | 0 | 0% |
| Psychic Fortress | 0 | 0% |
| Red Room Training | 0 | 0% |
| Reposition | 0 | 0% |
| Scientific Method | 0 | 0% |
| Seven Suns of Cinnibis | 0 | 0% |
| Shuriken Arashi | 0 | 0% |
| Sinister Traps | 0 | 0% |
| Sitrep | 0 | 0% |
| Sucker | 0 | 0% |
| Tactical Maneuvers | 0 | 0% |
| The Air Force | 0 | 0% |
| The Books of Truth | 0 | 0% |
| The Cat and the Spider | 0 | 0% |
| The High Council | 0 | 0% |
| The Initiative | 0 | 0% |
| The Shieldmobile | 0 | 0% |
| There Will Be Carnage | 0 | 0% |
| To Ash and Cinder | 0 | 0% |
| Uneasy Allies | 0 | 0% |
| Vapors of Valtorr | 0 | 0% |
| Vendetta | 0 | 0% |
| Weapon X Program | 0 | 0% |
| Weapons of Midgard | 0 | 0% |
| Wolverines | 0 | 0% |
| Yoink | 0 | 0% |
Xavier Protocols 