Now that the flurry of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals have mostly come to an end (though there’s still a sweet 47% off sale for the 14.5” Marvel Legends Hulk going on), it’s time to stop looking at this year’s discounted items and start looking at upcoming 2018 Marvel toys again! And on that front, Funko made a pretty surprising announcement this week, when they announced a whole series of Marvel Contest of Champions POP Vinyls figures—including King Groot, Punisher 2099, Venompool and more!

Those of you who don’t play mobile games probably have a scrunched up, confused face right now, as the latest round of Funko Marvel POPs revealed aren’t exactly everyday names. If you’re not a gamer, this round of GamerVerse figures may not be for you.

That said, this batch of announcements has to be one of the coolest things to ever happen to collectors who are avid players of the Marvel Contest of Champions mobile game!

Let’s take a look at what Funko has lined up…

There are five figures scheduled to be released to all stores: four regular releases and one 6” POP:

• Civil Warrior
• Guillotine
• Venompool
• King Groot
• 6” Howard the Duck in DuckMech

Guillotine isn’t exactly a household name, but I think the wacky takes on the other characters in this wave will appeal to plenty of fans—even those who don’t necessarily play Contest of Champions.

I really never thought we were ever going to see another Howard the Duck POP Vinyl figure ever released, but Funko has totally blown my mind by actually releasing a toy of Howard in the DuckMech. Craziness!

Of course, Funko isn’t called the king of exclusives (by me) for nothing, so it’s not a shocker that there are a quartet of store exclusive POP Contest of Champions figures coming up as well.

Hot Topic will be getting an exclusive green and gold colored Secret Empire Civil Warrior POP Vinyl. This is a bit of a surprise, as I wasn’t sure we’d ever see any merch released related to the mainstream-reviled “Hydra Cap”.

Meanwhile, Target may have the single coolest-looking exclusive: a Glow-in-the-Dark Scorched King Groot POP Vinyl! This exclusive Groot looks downright demonic—love it!

GameStop has by far the least impressive exclusive, which is just the regular VenomPool POP Vinyl holding a phone with one hand and pointing with the other. I don’t know about anyone else, but I won’t be terribly broken up if I miss this minor variant.

There’s one store exclusive character: the Funko Punisher 2099 POP Vinyl figure! This POP is based off of the design for Punisher 2099 seen in the Contest of Champions game and not as much his classic look from the Punisher 2099 comic book series (yes, that was a real thing—the 90s were an amazing time to be alive!).

The Punisher 2099 Funko POP Vinyl will be exclusive to Walgreens stores. This is a bit of a weird version (to say the least), but every Funko Punisher figure released thus far has been a hit, so I reckon this exclusive iteration will sell just fine as well.

The non-exclusive Funko Contest of Champions POP Vinyls are now up for order, and are scheduled to be released in February 2018. The four store exclusives should all be available for order online once they’re released next year as well.

What do you think about this wild and crazy wave of Marvel Funko POP Vinyls? Are you psyched to see more figures being released for games like Contest of Champions under the GamerVerse banner, or would you prefer if toy companies kept their focus on comic and movie-based Marvel toys?