Day 20 kicks off the final week before Christmas! Every point is critical this week, as HP attempts to retain its lead. Read on to find out how it all plays out today:
Day 20- MCU
Steve: Day 20 for the MCU Calendar is a wind-up Iron Man Robot!
This is a cute build with some good parts and interesting parts use. It’s non-canon but the idea of a toy fits well with the Christmas theme.
Surprisingly, BrickLink doesn’t give this a minifigure number as it has for numerous other buildable droids (this has been fixed retroactively in the past for other buildable figures, so who knows?).
Nice build, nothing mind-blowing but solid.
Day 20- SW
Patrick: The Final 5 days of the star wars advent has begun, and it needs a miracle to pull ahead of HP and MCU. Its off to a great start, however, with this IG-11 minifigure seen in the first season of Mando! While not exclusive, the figure is rare as it only appeared in the Razor Crest otherwise. This design for Assassin Droids they’ve been using since the Super Star Destroyer is great, and adding on a clip for a backpack gun-mount is a bonus. Unfortunately, the lack of blasters implies theres at least one more weapons rack in the advent.
Day 20- HP
Matt: Entering the final week and five days of the battle, HP is in an envious positon owing to its strong showing over the past week or so. The question now becomes, will they finish with enough points to secure an overall seasonal victory?
Day 20 gives us the final of the “Big 3” and an always welcome presence in calendar and retails set alike-ladies and gentlemen, Hermione Granger! Known as the brains of the three-man operation, it’s hard to fathom where the bys would be without her in the books, films, and advent calendars.
Hermione is depicted here in a new, unique, and exclusive variant with the unsorted school robes (seen previously in this calendar with Ron). She has a dual-sided face and comes with her LEGO-signature dark tan wand (again, an extra sprue today! That’s fantastic). I always enjoyed the “short legs” version of the Hermione character, owing in part to the lovely hairpiece she often gets in the child version of the character. I don’t always feel the more teenage/grown-up versions of the character depict her on screen appearance as accurately, but this version nails it. I can’t really find fault with this fig, and more unsorted robes are key for any Great Hall/HP MOCs down the road. All in all, I can’t see Hermione getting beat today based on the other offerings, and if so, it’s another MASSIVE and timely victory for HP.
Verdict
As she is known to do in both calendar and film, Hermione comes up clutch again this season securing the two points for HP and making the path to victory one step easier for HP, and one step harder for MCU. In 2nd place, SW gets a point with the IG-11 droid figure, previously only seen in the Razor Crest retail set. In 3rd place today, MCU, with a really cool entry that falls victim to the presence of minifigures from the other calendars on Day 20.
With that, the overall score is now:
HP- 25
MCU- 19
SW- 16
To be continued…
NewfoundLUG 