A New Era for Marvel: Crisis Protocol – August 2026 Update

Hello everyone and welcome to another Atomic Mass Games transmission!

We’ve updated every character’s Stat Cards in the game, as well as 5 Team Tactic Cards and the Horsemen Cards for Servants of the Apocalypse! 172 of those Stat Cards have significant changes, and we’ll be discussing them below.

In addition, the rulebook has been updated with a new way to handle terrain with overhanging parts in your games as well as a default way to Interact with Assets and Citizens. You can find all of the new cards and the Rulebook on the Rules page for Marvel: Crisis Protocol on our website.

Character Updates

This is by far the largest set of character updates we’ve ever made! This update is made up of 3 parts: updates to characters repackaged in new products, characters with immediate concerns that have been updated outside of the reprint process, and an overhaul of how much Stamina is appropriate for each Threat Value as well as a specific review of those Stamina values for each character.

As part of our normal process for repackaging characters, we take the time to evaluate our own experience and our playtesters’ experience of playing with those characters to decide if we should make any changes to bring them into line with how we want them to behave. When we see an opportunity for improvement, we put changes into our playtesting process and see if we can make characters align more with our vision for them. This has been a very successful process over the past 2 years, and we’ve continued it with these changes.

Another avenue for changes to be made is if we notice characters that are behaving significantly differently from our design and development intentions. These include characters that are performing well over or well under the balance curve as well as characters whose play patterns are significantly misaligned with our idea for them. For this process, we will look at win and loss data as well as looking at community opinions on characters. We monitor a lot of podcast content as well as community discussion forums to help us re-evaluate our own opinions on those characters. With this process, we’ve addressed some of the highest performing characters in the Game, such as Red Skull, Master of Hydra, King T’Challa, Black Bolt, and Apocalypse.

Finally, we come to the Stamina changes. For years now, the design and development teams have been unhappy with the diminished durability of characters compared to their durability near the beginning of the game’s life. In particular, we wanted there to be a greater chance for a character to survive another character’s Activation and strike back. After trying out quite a few different approaches to address this concern, we settled on re-establishing the baseline Stamina for each Threat Value. After a good bit of refining, we landed on the following standards for total Stamina, adding both Injured and Healthy sides together: 2 Threat at 8 Stamina; 3 Threat at 12 Stamina; 4 Threat at 14 Stamina; 5 Threat at 15 Stamina; and each subsequent Threat Value adding 1 to the total Stamina. That standard gave us the definition in each Threat Value we wanted since 5+ Threat Value characters are well defined by guaranteed power generation and number of effective actions they can take so didn’t need as much of a Stamina distinction. We then went in and evaluated each character to see if increasing their Stamina to this standard would be problematic due to either their effectiveness or their ability to scale in power with a Stamina increase.

Here’s the full list of the characters where only Stamina was updated:

• Agent Venom
• Amazing Spider-Man
• Ancient One; Angel
• Archangel
• Arnim Zola
• Avalanche
• Baron Helmut Zemo
• Baron Mordo
• Beta Ray Bill
• Bishop
• Black Panther
• Black Panther, Chosen of Bast
• Black Swan
• Blade
• Blue Marvel
• Cable
• Captain America (Sam Wilson)
• Captain America, First Avenger
• Captain Marvel
• Captain Marvel, Cosmic Avenger
• Crystal
• Cyclops
• Daredevil
• Deadpool
• Doc Ock
• Sinister Scientist
• Doctor Octopus
• Doctor Strange
• Doctor Strange
• Sorcerer Supreme
• Domino
• Ebony Maw
• Echo
• Electro
• Elektra
• Emma Frost
• Enchantress
• Exodus
• Frankenstein’s Monster
• Gambit
• Gamora
• Ghost-Spider
• Green Goblin
• Gwenom
• Heimdall, The All-Seeing
• Hela, Queen of Hel
• Hood
• Iceman
• Invincible Iron Man
• Iron Fist
• Iron Man
• Jean Grey
• Killmonger
• Klaw
• Kraven the Hunter
• Lady Mastermind
• Lady Sif
• Lockjaw
• Logan, the Wolverine
• Loki, God of Mischief
• Magik
• Maverick
• Maximus the Mad
• M’Baku
• Medusa
• MODOK
• Moon Knight
• Ms. Marvel
• Mystique
• Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos
• Nightcrawler
• Professor X
• Prowler
• Psylocke
• Punisher
• Red Skull, Master of the World
• Rogue
• Ronan the Accuser
• Ronin
• Sabretooth
• Sabretooth, Apex Predator
• Sandman
• Scarlet Spider
• Scarlet Witch
• Shadowcat
• Shadowland Daredevil
• Shocker
• Shuri
• Silk
• Skurge, the Executioner
• Spider Man (Peter Parker)
• Spider-man 2099
• Spider-Woman
• Squirrel Girl
• Storm
• Sunspot
• Taskmaster
• The Black Widow
• The Blob
• The Original Human Torch
• The Wrecking Crew
• Thor, Prince of Asgard
• Tigra
• Ultimate Spider-Man
• Ultron
• Ultron, Metal Tyrant
• Valkyrie
• Valkyrie and Elendil
• Venom
• Vision
• Vulture
• Warlock
• Warriors Three
• Winter Soldier
• Winter Soldier, Operative
• Wolverine

Change Log

Here’s a full list of the changes we made to Team Tactics Cards, Horsemen Cards, and Characters excluding those that have Stamina changes, which are listed above.

Team Tactic Cards

• Are You Sure You Want to Remember: Leadership updated to generate 2 memory tokens per Daze/KO. Tokens put on the card instead of the character.
• Asteroid M: Changed timing to Power Phase.
• Mothership: Changed timing to Power Phase.
• First of the Black Order: Changed so that all allied characters gain Power instead of other .
• Spirit of Wakanda: Third effect changed from allied characters gaining 2 Power to allied characters placing themselves within Range 1.

Horsemen Cards

• War: Fury updated to once per Turn.
• Death: Created to End reduced to 2 Power from 3.
• Famine: No changes.
• Pestilence: Consuming Blight increased to 3 Power from 2.
• Master of the Horsemen: Gains 1 Evolution token during the Cleanup Phase instead of the Power Phase. Can no longer reroll attack and dodge rolls with Evolution Tokens.

Characters

• Angela: Stamina changed. Blades of Ichor Pursuit changed to automatically trigger. Heven’s Wrath change to add dice based off Threat Value instead of Size and Cleave trigger updated.
• Ant-Man: Stamina changed. Can now hold Assets while (Tiny). Hitch a Ride updated to drop objectives.
• Apocalypse: Peerless added.
• Baron Strucker: Stamina Changed. Strategic Genius replaced with Tactical Insight.
• Baron Zemo: Stamina Changed. Master Swordsman once per Turn. Strategic Genius replaced with Tactical Insight.
• Black Bolt: Peerless added. King of the Inhumans updated.
• Black Dwarf: Stamina Changed. Brutal End down to 3 Power cost from 4.
• Captain America: Stamina Changed. A Day Unlike Any Other changed.
• Clea: Stamina changed. Demon Claws of Denak Range increased to 4 from 3.
• Colossus: Stamina Changed. Playing Catch cost reduced to 2 from 3.
• Corvus Glaive: Stamina Changed. Atom Splitter Pursuit trigger updated to require Hit instead of Wild. Glaive’s Edge updated to Place within Range 1 before the attack.
• Cosmic Ghost Rider: Peerless added.
• Crossbones: Stamina Changed. Speed up to Medium from Short.
• Crossbones, Merciless Merc: Stamina Changed. Speed up to Medium from Short.
• Darkstar: Stamina Changed. Rending Force updated.
• Elsa Bloodstone: Stamina Changed. Monster Hunting Weapons can now be Physical or Energy type and Hellfire trigger gives both Slow and Incinerate.
• Gladiator: Peerless added
• Gwenpool: Stamina Changed. Travel Through Gutter Spaced updated to drop objective tokens.
• Hand Ninjas: Can now interact with all Extract objective tokens.
• Honey Badger: Hamstring Strength up to 6 from 5. Can now interact with Extracts.
• Hulk: Hulk Smash! Updated to automatically Throw. Gamma Leap up to 4 Power from 3. Strongest One There Is changed to only Throw terrain.
• Hulkbuster: Stamina Changed. Leadership removed. Built to Take it reworked. Hulk-Scale Armor Innate superpower added. Iron Man(Hulkbuster) Stamina updated. Agile Armor Innate superpower added. Reserve keyword added.
• Iron Lad: Strength Actuators updated to once per Turn.
• Kang the Conqueror: Stamina Changed. Throw cost reduced.
• Killmonger, Usurper: Stamina Changed. Covert Weapons Updated. Leadership timing updated. Untamed Force updated.
• King Black Bolt: Peerless added.
• King T’challa: Bound changed to 2 rerolls instead of extra attack dice. Defender of Wakanda changed to once per Turn.
• Kingpin: Illicit Network updated to only count as 2 Healthy characters on Secure objective tokens.
• Magneto: Stamina Changed. Physical and Energy Defense increased to 4 from 3. Shrapnel Blast replaced with Magnetic Crush. Fatal Attraction updated to 2 Power Cost. Force Projection replaced with Polarity Shield.
• Malekith The Accursed: Peerless added.
• Mister Sinister: Stamina Changed. Strike removed. Genetic Splicing updated to gain Power. Recombinant Disintegration changed. DNA Database changed.
• MODOK, Scientist Supreme: Stamina Changed. Throw reduced to 2 Power from 3.
• Mysterio: Stamina Changed. Speed up to Medium from Short.
• Omega Red: Stamina Changed. Speed changed to Medium from Short.
• Phoenix: Stamina Changed. Peerless added.
• Proxima Midnight: Stamina Changed. Quantum Starburst up to 7 Strength from 6.
• Pyro: Stamina Changed. Firewall Power Cost changed to 3 from 2. Stoke the Flames Power Cost changed to 2 from 3.
• Quicksilver: Stamina Changed. Speedster changed to drop all objective tokens.
• Red Guardian: Stamina Changed. Siberian Shield Slam updated.
• Red Skull: Stamina Changed. Cosmic Blast Power Cost down to 0 from 1. Cosmic Cube reworked.
• Red Skull, Master of Hydra: Blitz Strike attack triggers changed. Empowered Gauntlets changed to treat Fails at Crits. Peerless added.
• Hydra Troopers: Stamina Changed. Hydra Energy Weapons down to Range 3 from 4.
• Shadow King: Stamina Changed. Astral Fiend Power Cost changed to 0. Nightmare Visions changed to roll 4 dice.
• Shang-Chi: Stamina Changed. Ten Thousand Shapes Strike Stagger trigger updated. Five Elements Fist timing changed. One-Inch Punch effects changed. Sixty-Four Infinite Palms Power Cost up to 2 from 1. Wild Goose Leaves the Flock timing updated.
• She-Hulk: Stamina changed. Physical Defense up to 4 from 3. Now has Healthy and Injured sides. The Defense Rests updated. Gamma Transfusion updated.
• Silver Sable: Stamina Changed. Want My Help? Pay Up. updated.
• Sin: Stamina Changed. Make It Personal Power Cost reduced to 3. Partners in Crime updated to Brock Rumlow. Red Mayhem effect order now player’s choice.
• Spectrum: Stamina Changed. Spender up to 4 Power from 0.
• Steve Rogers, Captain America: Stamina Changed. On Your Left changed to not have objective token restriction. I’ve Knocked Out Tyrants Over 200 Times Once per Turn restriction removed.
• Supergiant: Stamina Changed. Speed changed to Medium from Short.
• The Immortal Hulk: Peerless added.
• Thor, Hero of Midgard: Odinson’s Ire up to Range 3 from 2. Have at Thee! down to 3 Power from 4.
• Ursa Major: Stamina Changed. Physical Defense up to 4 from 3.
• Viper: Stamina Changed. Attack special rules for all attacks reworked.
• War Machine: Stamina Changed. Empty the Clip updated. Reload active superpower added.
• Wasp: Stamina changed. Can now hold Assets while (Tiny).
• Werewolf By Night: Stamina Changed. Pounce and Midnight Massacre down to 2 Power from 3.

Phew! We looking forward to the thoughtful discussion and excitement this upgrade brings. Thank you all for tuning in, please share your thoughts in the comments section!

Till next time,
Atomic Mass Games signing off!