Welcome, today I wanted to do a review on cabal and specifically my take on Malekith led Cabal. I took Malekith led Cabal to Nashcon to some solid success.
Editor’s Note: You can listen to Peyton talk about this roster and his entire Nashcon run on Episode 4 of Doomed Prophecy.
Characters: 10
Baron Zemo Helmut Zemo Threat: 3
Bullseye Benjamin Poindexter Threat: 2
—Malekith The Accursed Malekith Threat: 7
—Mystique Raven Darkholme Threat: 3
Medusa Medusalith Amaquelin-Boltagon Threat: 4
Enchantress Amora Threat: 4
Loki, God of Mischief Loki Laufeyson Threat: 5
Infinity Gem: Mind Threat: 1
Hulk Bruce Banner Threat: 6
Luke Cage Luke Cage Threat: 3
Baron Mordo Karl Amadeus Mordo Threat: 3
Tactics: 10
Dark Reign
Midnight Phantasmagoria
The Black Bifrost
Smash
Follow Me
Deception
Advanced R&D
Indomitable
Face Me
Heroes for Hire
Secure Crisis: 3
Intrusions Open Across City as Seals Collapse Threat: 19
Gamma Wave Sweeps Across Midwest Threat: 15
Super-Powered Scoundrels Form Sinister Syndicate! Threat: 20
Extract Crisis: 3
Fear Grips World As “Worthy” Terrorize Cities Threat: 18
The Montesi Formula Found Threat: 17
Research Station Attacked! Threat: 16
This roster allowed for an extremely fun and interesting playstyle of extreme attrition. The entirety of the roster is built to optimize Malekith in as many situations as possible. This style of roster is about going more narrow than the other team and using attrition and high output models in addition to Malekith himself to push a high scenario lead due to the opponent not having the ability contest meaningfully. Characters like Hulk and Medusa who can do massive damage while also displacing large portions of the opposing squad are key to making this strategy effective.
For this style of play you will want some center secures, specifically Gamma Waves and Intrusions Open Across the City. Gamma forces a very congested center of the table, allowing your damage and displacement to have maximum efficiency and for a huge comeback turn even if you go down on score for the first turn or two.
Conversely, Intrusions is an extremely slow crisis and allows your big hitters like Malekith or Hulk to reposition themselves without wasting actions for maximum efficiency. The last secure I went back and forth a lot on, but currently I am settled on Super Powered Scoundrels.
This secure is a little faster than I usually prefer but Malekith is almost unkillable on this crisis, and due to how mobile he is with Ferocity he is very good at moving point to point, removing your opponents way to score points between his attacks and a good use of his tactic card Midnight Phantasmagoria which can easily push opposing characters off the center point and the two side points on either side of the table.
For extracts there are two that stand out as amazing and several good options for the last extract. Fear Grips is a very common extract because who doesn’t like rolling more attack dice but Malekith is in a tier of his own on this crisis in my opinion. Using tools like Loki, Hulk, Deception, and Face Me, you can easily drag an opposing character who grabbed a side hammer into range to be double tapped by Malekith on turn 1.
A Malekith roster will frequently be up 3-1 on hammers at the end of turn one due to this. The next slam dunk extract is Research Station Attacked. This extract, due to its nature, acts as a very high scoring secondary secure and forces a big scrum in the center of the board.
This lends itself to Malekith and Hulk crushing the center of the field while any other characters you can afford to play hold your home secure objectives. Deception, Midnight Phantasmagoria, and Hulk or Malekith’s inbuilt displacement can help guarantee control of the research station.
The last crisis should be a slow scoring central extract. This could be things like: Montessi Formula Found, Alien Ship Crashes Downtown, Skrulls Infiltrate World Leadership, or Mutant Extremists Target U.S. Senators.
The key characters for a Malekith roster are the following pieces: Malekith, Mystique, Bullseye, and Hulk.
Mystique is a key player in almost all of my squads with Malekith. The threat of Deception as well as being an affiliated long mover are both fantastic tools for Malekith. Bullseye is an affiliated 2 which is very important when playing as many high threat pieces as this style of lists use.
Hulk is a piece that can really push some matchups into your advantage. Many squads don’t have the tools to deal with both Hulk and Malekith at the same time.
The other characters in the roster will be tech pieces brought for specific situations. In a Malekith roster I also want an affiliated 5 for specific threat values. MODOK and Loki are the definite front runners. I went with Loki due to the guaranteed movement on opponents’ models and the tax on the opponent’s power economy due to the God of Mischief which changes the web warriors and Black Order matchups drastically.
The next thing I added were 2 different 4 threat characters one of which needs to be affiliated. In the roster above I added medusa which can help position Malekith in situations when you cannot afford Hulk. She does however lose a lot of value if you don’t have Advance R&D. For the affiliated 4 I personally like Enchantress mainly because of Sirens Call. The last 3 slots I like to use 3 threats, Baron Zemo is a personal favorite of mine just a jack of all trades character he is almost never a bad choice. Next I added Baron Mordo he helps get Malekith and other characters rolling with his Ferocity of Cytorak ability. He also is very helpful on the Spider portals or Deadly Meteors. The last spot is purely a tech piece for whatever you think your worst matchup is, I included Luke Cage as protection from Helios Laser.
After Nashcon I have a list of things to consider. I was not overly happy with my 17 point teams so swapping enchantress for another 4 would be something I would heavily consider. I also found that Smash was frequently not worth the tactic card slot so I am looking at cards to replace it with, escort to safety and fall back are high on that list. I am also looking at test Thanos with mind and space gems as more control pieces. The last swap on my testing list is dropping Luke for Ghost-Spider as a way to protect Malekith and give you better control.
Hopefully this has helped give some understanding to playing Malekith led Cabal. If you have thoughts on the topic let me know either here on the site or reach out to me on the LOS discord. Follow the rest of the LOS content on youtube, patreon or discord.
Discord: https://discord.gg/a9hAPtH
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtfbXR181RLbqW5B2Huwz4w