In case you missed the news during the Ministravaganza, Atomic Mass Games has some new rule updates for Marvel: Crisis Protocol.
The Ministravaganza 2025 stream was packed with loads of teasers and previews. That said, during the stream it was mentioned that a full breakdown of the rules changes would be posted afterwards. Well they are out now and some of these changes are really important. So let’s go over the core rules changes right now!
Complete sidenote: Did anyone else notice that Kang took Red Skull’s spot on the cover art?
…Interesting.
Anyhow, you can download the new core rules here from AMG for free. Now, on to the big changes.
Marvel: Crisis Protocol Core Rules Updated November 2025
“The most important update to be aware of is to Roster building and the process for Building the Mission and selecting Crisis Cards for a game. We’ve increased the amount of Crisis Cards in Rosters from 3 Secure and 3 Extract to 5 Secure and 5 Extract. This change massively increases the variety of combinations that a player will play from game to game.”
You can find the new challenger cards here. That said, this change isn’t just “bring more cards” it also impacts how you select missions.
“Perhaps even more significantly, we’ve changed the process for Building the Mission so that the players randomly draw 2 of their Crisis Cards for a type instead of 1, and their opponent picks 1 of those cards to use in that Game. “
So, in essence, you’ll have to bring five cards for both Secures and Extracts. You’ll be drawing two of them, and then your opponent will be selecting the mission from those two options.
Priority Roll Updates
Another change that has a lot of impacts down the line is the change to how priority works. Essentially, there are two roll-offs now. One for deployment and a second roll for the first turn priority.
“This second priority roll forces players to deal with uncertainty in Deployment.
With the update to make another priority roll, each player has to choose their Squad and deploy without knowing which player will take the first Turn. That incentivizes the players to build backup plans into their Squad, possibly include more well-rounded characters that can respond to what happens, and deploy without as clear of a spot to set up an ambush.”
I can certainly see what the goal of this change is and I’m looking forward to playing with both of these change in the future. But these two changes were more “meta” changes to me. Now let’s talk about the changes to things that happen while you’re playing.
Terrain, Throws & Splash Damage
“Damage from Throws is now set at 3 instead of being based off the Size of the object being Thrown.”
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To me (and because I like to throw stuff all the time) this change is pretty massive. This change, I believe, will alter terrain setups a whole lot for players with access to loads of terrain. Size 1 and 2 terrain features just got a nice boost to damage and it makes throwing those really worth doing now. It also makes size 4 and 5 pieces way less reliable sources of damage.
I haven’t done a deep dive on the math of this change but the reality is that this makes loads of smaller terrain more viable in throw-heavy lists. Characters like Magneto that have “Pay X to throw” with no “once per turn” cap just got a TON of ammo to play with now. And, as someone who’s got too many Sentinels, having them get tossed into each other was really problematic.
What does that have to do with splash damage? Well nothing directly. But this final change has a much more obvious impact — or rather a lack of impact.
“Damaging allies with beam and area attacks has been removed.”
And no, that’s not a typo — it’s in the core rules already:
The same sentence was added to the Area Attack rule. It’s all on page 16 of the core rulebook.
Honestly, this change probably won’t mess with veteran players too much. They were already watching out for those attacks and avoiding them or planning around them. This change will help out newer or more casual players though. It makes things simple and allows you to go ahead and do those “big” hits and not worry about damaging your allies. So Blast Away!
That said, both of these changes will have long term impacts and ripple effects. I think certain Characters that have throw abilities might need a look at power costs for those. I also think that characters that could already avoid damaging teammates with their Beams/Area attacks might need a quick glance, too (looking at you Storm).
New Objectives Coming & Other Musings
The final core rules change is the addition of Appendix I which contains rules for new objective token types that are coming next year. But for folks that want to try them out, AMG provided two mission cards with new objectives to use right now. These two new objectives are Source and Zone tokens.
” Source tokens represent objects that create or store other items. When a character Interacts with a Source token, they flip the Source token to its exhausted side and pick up a set-aside Asset or Civilian objective token that behaves like the Extract objective tokens you’re used to. At the end of the Round, those non-Source objective tokens are removed from the game, so characters need to return to the Source token that doesn’t change locations to pick up another token.”
Basically this means that sneaky players can still swoop in to score from under an opponent’s feet. However, they will have to keep coming back to do it again if they want to keep scoring.
As for Zones, well those are slightly different.
“The new type of Secure objective token, Zone tokens, do this by having a 90 degree Arc marked on them. Characters within Range 3 and within the area defined by the Arc are affected by the Zone token’s special rules.”
One final rules change also involves passing and Grunt interactions:
“Passing has been updated to not count Grunts since they activate on the same Turn as their parent character. “
I think that one is relatively minor but when it does come up, now there’s a better rule to reference. Again, these rules are all out now and live. You can download them right here.
Character Card Updates
This is yet another massive list of changes. I’m not going to cover each one in this article as we’re already getting quite long winded here. But I did want folks to be aware of them. You can download the updated character cards here. Additionally, you can view ALL the card updates/rules here.
I just wanted to mention that AMG has had three separate character card updates this year which is more than any other previous year. That’s kind of a big deal. It also shows how committed they are to working on this game and staying engaged with the community and feedback. So just be sure you’re up-to-date on your character cards!
That’s a LOT of changes! Excelsior!
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Writer, Editor, Texas Native, and now Tex-Pat, Adam covers all things Tabletop Gaming. Which includes Warhammer 40,000, Age of Sigmar, D&D, Board Games and everything else that involves dice, boards, cards and a table.
A hobbyist, player, and collector of miniatures and games, Adam’s current obsession are his Death and Chaos Armies for Age of Sigmar, his Blood Angels and Tyranids for 40k, an expanding collection of Marvel: Crisis Protocol minis, and his ever growing Arkham Horror: The Card Game Collection.
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