Every year prior to GenCon there's a lot of speculation on what the new hotness will be-- and afterwards, there's always a buch of stuff that was supposed to be huge, and wasn't.

What figure(s) do you expect will lose their shine after GenCon?

My top pick-- Sentry and Void. I think this fig will wash out of competitive play and people will not be as excited about it.

I'm curious to see how Scarlet Witch (FF) holds up, or if she's competitive. Her 50 point version is so fragile that I pause when thinking about using her.

I think this year map choice will play a huge part. Get a map that is just wide open where ventry can't hide or get one where he can will have a huge effect on that game.

Also it might just come down to the rolls like it did last year in the finals of Metron-Nightcrawler versus Metron-Kid Zoom.

The Golden Age tournament part though I bet that will have a lot of strategy involved in it. I do not see a Ventry team doing as well there.

I agree. In my opinion she's always worth her 75 points on that version. Playing against her 50 pt version quite a few times now, I usually have someone annihilate her rather quickly because I can. I've also seen opponents push her and not realizing how fragile she is, accidently KO her. The look on their faces is priceless when this happens.

Sentry/Void most likely won't win at the high end, but it is the kind of figure that is pretty much guaranteed to do decent no matter how good/bad the pilot is. So while I agree it won't be a breakout success, I also think it will remain a popular choice, for laziness if nothing else. After all, it is the ultimate "build against me or die" figure.

Sentry/Void are NOT as good as everyone acts against good players/teams.

They'll crush an unsuspecting player without a dent. But a good player will find them easy to defeat in their opponent's over-confident hands.

As for surprise hotness.
I imagine thunderbolts will make a return.
The Marquee Dark Night figure + 68 point Lt. Gordon

My guess, the winning team will be
TDK #100 Batman
TDK #100 Batman
TDK #021 Lt. Gordon
20 Points of IG

Crystal was looking like a very competitive piece. Quake at range is excellent but add those twin elements effects to it and it is just nasty.

I would be very surprised to see Venty in the top 16, or more importantly in the top 8. It will show up in the events leading up to the finals, but one figure just doesn't give you enough options.

I'm actually really looking forward to seeing what shows up this year. As hated as the gauntlet is, I suspect the top 16 will have 260 points of variety and a 40 point gauntlet. IMO, that's better than the 3 variations of the same team that normally appear.

It's also going to be interesting because the IG meta has revolved around strategies that don't work as well in 300, like Chanos. I suspect that this is going to be one of the more surprising Worlds.

The split/merge could do really well, but I don't know if players are familiar enough with it yet to really be able to abuse it.

I expect Scarlet Witch to be the one go to figure most folks will use. Yes her lower point version is fragile, but her perplex, probability control, and barrier with Mystic gives some really good support for her cost.

I think that there is so much out there that hopefully thanks to retirement people will think out of the box. Seems like there is potential for a lot of variety of teams. This would be an exciting time to be at Gencon.

Then come next year everyone will just be trying to copy the winning and most successful teams. Then we can only hope that whatever is the staple of those teams will see retirement so the creative juices have to get active again.

No doubt Scarlet Witch at both her point values will be very present and accounted for on many teams. I can't fault people for making her a goto piece.

2 words- Dinah Soar. An incredibly underrated piece as it is. Add in the ability to tote around 2 Avengers keyword figures (the most broken competetive keyword currently) and you've got the makings of a sleeper gem of a figure.

I'd expect to see Odin at Gen Con, though I've never seen him as "new hotness" I figure there will be a few copycats trying to emulate someone's success at Origins.

Zemo certainly makes it more appealing, but it is still a hefty investment on a full team, and hard to make a full team of T-bolted characters. I figure to see it on one figure (like Hawkeye) but think the talk about Zemo is just that... talk.

It will be interesting to see what shows up from DKR. There were lots of complaints about it being overpowered, but the set seems to have been overshadowed by CW.

I think CW as a whole will see a fall from grace, at least until people figure out how to abuse those duos.

I'm afraid of this as well. I don't know what the availability of the figure is though. I know as far as chase figures go he hadn't been going for very much. Hard to say how many will be seen.