Marvel Puzzle Quest: A Poorly-Written Character Guide By A Lousy Player: The Two-Stars, Part 1. (#2 in a series of Whatever.) · 7:14pm Jan 15th, 2017
And here the strategy begins.
At the one-star level, character powers are pretty straightforward: you blast this, kick someone, stun an opponent. Just about every attack only does one thing, every power has to be actively used, and there isn't much thought as to when you pull something out or why. Once you reach the next character tier, the abilities slowly start to become a little more complicated. They also begin to interact. There are characters in MPQ who can feel completely useless right up until the moment you find their perfect partner, the one whose powers complement and enhance in such a way as to turn a waste of roster space into one of your most effective fighters. We'll meet a couple of those when we get to the three-star level -- but for the most part, the interactions begin here.
As such, I'm adding two new sections to a few entries.
Best Friends: The character(s) this person might work with in order to make them better. (The game actually acknowledges this: there's a PvP two-on-two event called Best Friends Forever.)
Worst Enemies: The opponents you generally don't want to bring this character in against.
We can also dump a couple of lines which were present in the one-star entries because once you reach this level, every character has three powers, and they can all reach a maximum level of 94 on their own, or 144 once you Champion them. (Recap: you spend ISO and covers until you get thirteen covers on a character and reach L94. You then spend 5000 ISO for the Champion promotion. After that, each cover adds a level and brings bonus rewards of Hero Points, recruit tokens, and enough ISO to eventually get your 5K back. Once you hit L144, just sell any further covers back to the game for 250 ISO each.) Featured game events for those characters will boost them to L220 or so.
Because 2-stars can get into the mid-100s and will eventually have higher-tier characters interacting with and shielding them within fighting teams of three, this part of your roster will last for a long time: they'll eventually be overshadowed by the higher tiers, but their fighting effectiveness can linger for a while. And since each game event will require a specific two-star character in order to access a mission set (along with a couple of Deadpool Dailies which call for this power level), you're going to wind up keeping them around.
1-stars teach you how to move the board. 2-stars are where you start playing the game.
And one new rule comes in for the first time here: you can have any number of star-level character variants on your overall roster, but you can only have one version on your current three-member active fighting team. So you can't team * Hawkeye with ** Hawkeye: it's one or the other, and this rule holds through all the tiers.
Black Widow (Original) (Natasha Romanova) (Cover: X-Men First Class #9) Purple, Blue, Black
Health at L144: 4144
Powers:
Purple (5 covers assigned) Aggressive Recon Cost 11 (5?) Natasha still isn't very particular about other people's stuff. When maxed out, she confiscates up to four of each color from the enemy's pool, as long as your opponents have that much to give. These points are then added to your pool and can be used immediately.
Blue (3) Anti-Gravity Device Cost: 9 Stark technology can do anything! -- but if only she understood how to work it... If there are enemy countdown tiles on the board, increase the timer on all of them by 3, meaning they'll mean that many more moves before they go off. If there aren't any present, everyone on Natasha's team, herself included, receives a temporary boost of no more than 1533 to their Health, up to their normal maximum. (This is represented as a green portion of the Health bar.) The boost lasts for the entire fight or until whittled away by enemy damage -- but once the fight ends, the affected characters drop back to their true post-fight Health score. So if you had a damaged score 1000 Health, Natasha boosted you to 2533, and the fight ended on the next move, you would exit at 1000 Health.
(In-round healing exists in the game -- but the majority of it is temporary, and will be shown as that green bar. True healing is harder to come by, and manifests as the normal red.)
If this power is brought to the 5-cover level, it increases all countdown tile timers by 4 and temporarily boosts Health by 896, or 1792 if no countdown tiles are present.
Black (5) Espionage Cost: 0, Passive Sneaky, sneaky... Whenever Natasha is the attacker for one of her strong colors, she does 162 points in bonus damage. If the enemy has any color points in the attacking hue, she automatically steals one and adds it to her team's color pool.
In Play: See that question mark in the Aggressive Recon power cost? The game tinkers with itself now and again. Characters are buffed, nerfed, have things adjusted. Natasha's AR cost on her sheet is still listed at 11. But when you put her in play? It costs 5. Five purple to steal four of everything. Including purple, which puts this power 80% of the way towards going off again.
And this means that until it's fixed or adjusted, Galactus' greatest terror is a woman in fishnets.
That's not a joke. Galactus is available as an occasional boss fight. He continually creates countdown tiles which, when they go off, corrupt the board's tiles, then drain the ruined tiles into his own pool. As soon as he reaches thirty points in any single color, he automatically wins. Bring Natasha in? If she's the highest level for her strong colors, she'll pull one of those points out every time she makes a match. Get five purple together and she'll drain his pool, potentially coming most of the way towards doing it again. Assemble the blue and buy a little more time. Give her some decent high-level company, hope for a little (or, when Galactus is high-level, a lot of) luck and eventually, you'll bring him down. At a cost of 5 purple for AR, Natasha is just a little bit broken. But oh, that breakage is so much fun to use...
Because Natasha is fairly fragile for a maxed-out 2-star, you'll generally want to put her with some shielding company. Plan part of your strategy around her color thefts: you'll be charging powers faster than usual, so the more expensive options can come into play during an earlier part of the round. (It's called Absorb And Burn. Sound familiar?) When played against console characters and a few countdown-creating PCs, she can buy time -- but those tiles still have to be removed or their creator downed before they can go off, and there will be occasions when all you do is wind up with a full fleet of countdowns going off at the same time, because you stalled and stalled and didn't get rid of anything -- while new countdowns were still being created. Health boosts can keep you in the fight for a while, but they'll only keep you in that fight. They don't save you health pack use at the end of it. Still -- there's nothing quite like that second wind...
Just about everyone at the two-star tier has something to fear from Natasha, and her influence can stretch some distance up the power pyramid. If your opponent can't keep their color pool intact, their capabilities are going to be limited. But once you find enemies with attacks which either reach into your back ranks or simply Strike For Massive Damage with no powers involved because their level is just that high, she's going to drop. She won't save you forever. But she'll be a pest for a very long time.
As An Opponent: Tap her, bring her to the front, take her out. Play keep-away with purple: even if you don't have it as a strong color and can't power anyone with it, match them every chance you get because if you don't, she will. She's generally going to be your first priority because it currently takes so little to charge her and once she's ready, she'll effectively prep her entire team. Healing and color theft in a single package is a dangerous combination -- but at least you only have to hit one character in order to remove both, and her health is fairly low.
Best Friends: Two words: "meat shield." Someone with high health and quick-charging powers makes a great companion for Natasha, because she'll get them running that much faster. At this tier, Ares will want to travel at her side most of the time. Once you get into the *** level, she can fall in game-love with Deadpool: they may be in competition for purple, but both of their black powers are passive and his is a true meat shield. (We'll get to that. Or not.) Don't worry about her with characters who create friendly countdowns: she won't increase the timers on those. And as a general rule, anyone with low health loves a friend who makes shield tiles.
Worst Enemies: Natasha has two great fears: the full team attack and that single mega-damage strike. You can hide her in the back, but anything which affects the entire group at once will get her. Let her make the attack at the wrong moment and a huge retaliation strike can remove her in an instant. Her healing can delay the inevitable, but there are ways to do 4144 in damage in one shot and if you leave her vulnerable when it happens? Shredded fishnets all over the battlefield.
Ares (Cover: Siege #2, second printing variant) Green, Red, Yellow
Health at L144: 7992
Powers:
Green (5) Onslaught Cost: 7 Ares puts everything he has into every swing of his axe -- everything. When this power is used, he drains the entire green color pool and puts it into a single blow, dealing 304 points of damage to the front-rank enemy for every green point expended. (So if the green pool is maxed out, he will hit for 9120 in one shot.) However, there's just a little bit of fallout: for every two points used in his attack, the enemy instantly gains one green to their own color pool, up to their potential maximum.
Red (4) Rampage Cost: 10 Remember how we've been talking about team attacks? Welcome to team attacks. Ares happily wades into the center of the fight and starts swinging at everyone within reach. This does 1103 points to the entire enemy team: everyone on it takes that much damage. However... if Ares has been taking a little hurt himself and is below 25% of his maximum Health when this attack goes off, he'll strike for 2208 instead. All this damage does not need to be taken in a single fight: if you bring a wounded Ares into battle and he starts below that level, Rampage will begin at the higher damage. (If boosted to five covers, the requirement becomes being below 30% of maximum Health.)
Yellow (4) Sunder Cost: 10 Ares dedicates just about everything to war, and sometimes he overcommits. This power will deal 2922 to the front-rank opponent -- and also hurts Ares for 1299. The good news is that he might get some of that back, because the power also creates a three-turn yellow countdown tile. If that reaches zero, the tile will deal an extra 974 points of damage to whoever's in the front at the time, simultaneously true-healing Ares for 1056. But if it's matched or destroyed before then? No bonus damage, and those wounds remain. (When maxed, the countdown tile only needs two turns before it goes off.)
In Play: The lessons Ares teaches are scouting, timing, and spending priority.
Onslaught can be a fairly fast attack. (It used to be faster, with a minimum cost of 5.) Get some green flowing and you can swing that axe over and over. But there's a built-in temptation to Ares, and it centers around stacking him up. At this tier, building up your green pool might take just about anyone out in one huge swing. How far can you push him? Is it safe to save up for ten points? Fifteen? Are you really going to try for thirty? What if you're facing someone who drains points? How about the fact that he's probably taking damage the whole time you're saving up, because he'll probably be the one going out front to make his green matches? A mega-swing with Onslaught can end the game: spending too much time working for it can end yours.
With Rampage... well, if he's getting hurt, those wounds might seem to have a benefit. But there's a lesson to be learned with characters whose powers depend on their Health level, and that's "You don't get to manage your own Health." The enemy generally manages your Health. Look, Ares is at 24% now! Next turn, we're gonna Rampage! -- oh. Right. Being at 24% means he can be taken out in one shot. Which they just did. Oops. And when he's healthier -- most single-strike red powers do more damage than this when targeting one opponent. Is it better to put one huge dent in their line or a very long scratch? And as for Sunder, you have no control over where that yellow tile winds up. If it goes off for you, the final Health cost isn't much to pay. If it's removed...
Scouting is simple. When you're thinking about using Ares, look at the enemy roster. Carefully. You are searching for three things: characters who drain points, characters who directly use green, and That One Team-Up. (We'll get to that.) The second category may actually be your biggest problem. Hooray, you loaded up to thirty and took out that one problem! And you also just gave fifteen green to a survivor who can use it, and here it comes! It's very easy to blunder into battle with Ares and put yourself in a position where he's actively helping everyone. Remember, his priority is war, and that means enemies who can give him a decent fight.
As An Opponent: Ares will frequently be encountered as an enemy character, and the computer will happily introduce you to his potential at L280 or so. However, the computer will always trigger a power as soon as it has the minimum required for setting it off, so you'll never have to worry about a mega-Onslaught unless it takes place right after a major color steal or green-heavy cascade. However, once he's pumped up that high, the constant smaller hits are going to be bad enough. Try to have someone on your team who can use green: you're going to be receiving a steady supply of both that and pain. Monitor his health: once he gets close to that Rampage boost zone, check to see how much red he has available and do everything you can to take him down to 0 in one shot. And if he's teamed with console characters who generate green for him... steal his pool, but get ready to do it over and over, and reconcile yourself to a long fight: you won't be able to completely keep up, and the wounds will ache for a long time.
Best Friends: Ares directly benefits from color stealers: they get him charged faster and, in the event that he gets a little too enthusiastic, might be able to mitigate some of his fallout. Anyone who can cut down on countdown timer duration will make Sunder more efficient, but that's generally asking him to punch above his power tier. Once you reach the *** level, you'll find characters who can directly generate or convert tiles to green, and he can keep a few of them company -- but some of them will make more efficient use of the pool.
Worst enemies: Pool drainers, resource deniers, and That One Team-Up -- because the **** level contains Red Hulk, who has a singular power: Gamma Siphon. What does that do? Drains the entire green pool in one shot. Most green-using characters have a lot to fear from General Ross, and for someone as potentially reliant on pool building as Ares, it's a killer.
(Do not put those two directly against each other. Ross is a **** for a reason and if he has the Siphon enabled, he will end you.)
Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) (Cover: Ms. Marvel #45 2006) Red, Black, Yellow
Health at L144: 9280
Powers:
Red (4) Photonic Blasts Cost: 7 Some people blast things. Carol blasts through things. This attack does 830 damage and, if there are any enemy Shield tiles on the board, destroys up to three of them. (If there are four or more, destroy a random three.) Any matches or cascades resulting from the tile drop resolve normally. Destroyed tiles don't provide color points. (If maxed, does 1230 damage with no increase to Shield destruction.)
Black (4) Sonic Boom Cost: 9, additional 4 First you do the fly-by, and then you do the fly-back. Carol blows through the battlefield, doing 793 damage to everyone on the enemy team and creating a three-turn black countdown tile in a random location. If it goes off, the boom comes in, and 890 additional damage is inflicted on that team. But the power is draining to use: when Carol triggers it, four points are taken from a random color other than black. If the team's pool is lower than this or has nothing left, the power still operates normally. (If maxed out, the power does 970 on the first strike and only drains three additional points.)
Yellow (5) Strategic Command Cost: 8 When you're military, you know when to call in help. (Your aim, however, still needs work.) Carol converts nine random tiles of any nature to white. Any matches or cascades created this way resolve normally.
In Play: This is the Carol of the thigh-high boots, domino mask, and epic leotard wedgies. As such, she doesn't look dangerous. Fashion victim, yes. Dangerous, no. Besides, you've got *** and **** versions of her to look forward to, plus Kamala's waiting in the *** wings. So how can she be dangerous?
And then she hits the battlefield.
Photonic Blasts is a decent utility attack power in many situations: the cost isn't bad and when you're up against someone like Bullseye, the ability to keep taking out shields is a precious one. Sonic Boom is one of those wince-before-using abilities: you want the team attack, but you never know where that extra four is going to be taken from. (It's not a bad idea to use it as your last attack, letting the rest of the pool be used before committing to it -- at least until the stalling gets your team killed.) But the danger, the real and true danger, is Strategic Command. Because all it does is convert nine random tiles to white.
Any nine tiles.
Standard tiles. Attack tiles. Shield tiles. Countdown tiles.
Anything.
There's a price to pay for this. The power can't be aimed in any way: if you have any special ally tiles on the board, she's just as likely to get them as anything else. And there's no guarantee that she'll get anything you needed her to convert, or place the new white tiles in a place where you can use them. Carol is, to a large extent, built around pure dumb luck. But if you do get lucky, she'll take the enemy's tiles and turn them white. She'll create matches and charge your Team-Up pool without using up your turn. Incredible luck might create a match-five and give you a Critical tile to play with. And if you can save up sixteen yellow, go ahead and use it twice. Over a fourth of the board will now be white. That's almost got to do something...
Numerous risks come with Carol. It's not just the lack of control over which tiles change: it's having just put a lot of white on the board which you won't be able to clear immediately. If you're fighting PC board-moving characters, it's an open invitation for them to charge their own Team-Up pools. Use her on a team with someone who already created friendly special tiles and she might not get rid of them by accident. Maybe. Surely the RNG will be merciful. But if you get lucky with Strategic Command, she can solve a huge number of your problems in one shot. The question then becomes how many more she just created.
As An Opponent: You can leave your Shield tile creators at home unless they have the ability to create huge quantities in one shot. Anyone who makes friendly special tiles had better be able to do it in bulk, and you need to reconcile yourself to either losing a few of them or just not using those characters. Her relatively high Health means she'll take a while to get rid of, and she'll usually be doing damage the whole time. However, once in a while, her Strategic Command will command your strategy by creating white tiles which you can turn into a match-five on your turn. And because the computer doesn't save up points, you don't have to worry about stacked SCs or Sonic Booms. In fact, your major worry with Sonic Boom should be Cartoon Network broadcasting it at three a.m. on Sundays.
Best Friends: The ** version of Hawkeye, full stop and just about forever-wedded. If Carol and Clint aren't walking hand-in-hand, you'd better have a good reason for it. (Details upcoming.) Once you get **** access, putting her on a team with Charles Xavier has a certain intrigue. In both cases, it's all about the match-five...
Worst Enemies: Because Carol doesn't have an early knockout punch, she generally needs to be on a team with at least one heavy hitter or she'll be stuck trying to whittle people down. It also makes her vulnerable to anyone who can score large amounts of damage on her in three or four shots: she can't keep up in a straight attrition war. Anyone who creates crowds of special tiles will leave her in a position where she can't get them all.
Hawkeye (Clint Barton) (Cover: Hawkeye #6, 2012) Blue, Red, Purple
Health at L144: 6586
Powers:
Blue (3) Electric Arrow Cost: 9 At least it's not a boxing glove, right? Still, you're dealing with one of the world's slowest-moving arrows. Fire this off and convert a basic blue tile of your choice into a three-turn countdown. If it goes off, whichever opponent is in the front rank gets stunned for two turns, and a pair of random colors in the enemy pool lose four points each. (If maxed, the stun lasts three turns, while the countdown only takes two.)
Red (5) Blast Arrow Cost: 9 It's like shooting nitroglycerin. Change a basic red tile into a two-turn countdown. Should it go off, everyone on the enemy team takes 1769 in damage.
Purple (5) Speed Shot Cost: 0, Passive & Reactive Perfection leads to one thing: more perfection. Any time your team makes a match-five through deliberate intent or cascade luck, Clint automatically converts up to four purple tiles (if that many are available) into two-turn countdowns. Every one which manages to go off does 1255 points of damage to the front-rank opponent, and they go off one at a time. If any given shot downs that enemy and there are still Speed Shots left, any remaining go to work on whoever was in second, and so on down the line. To add potential insult to so much injury, all Speed Shot tiles vanish from the board as they go off, and that may lead to matches and cascades, which will resolve normally. And, on the worst day of your opponent's life, more Speed Shots.
In play: Sadly, this is the end of Clint's MPQ road: his ** version is his last. But he at least gets the honor of going out with one of the ** tier's loudest bangs. Because Electric Arrow can be hard to use, especially when you're setting up a stun for later and have to hope the countdown tile holds up. Blast Arrow is a very good team attack for the cost -- but again, there's that stall factor, and it's the biggest problem with Clint: everything he does, you have to wait on. Turns out his * version was training you for more than you thought.
But Speed Shot is your reliable unreliable.
Can you count on making a match-five? No. Entire games will pass without them. Sometimes you'll start a round (and you always move first) with the board in the perfect configuration to create one and naturally, that's the time you didn't bring Clint. But when it happens? As long as there's purple available on the board, Clint will go to work. With four tiles created per match-five, it's hard for the enemy to get them all. Get two match-fives during a cascade and you might have eight Speed Shots ticking down on the board.
You can't count on creating a match-five. But you can team Clint with characters who raise the odds...
Use Clint as your pinch hitter off the bench. He has a few select skills which mix in well with a group in his stunning and group attacks, and the ability to deliberately pick your countdown spot helps -- but it doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to make those powers work. But when you get lucky -- or arrange for your own luck -- he'll jump to the fore, grab the heaviest bat in the cubbyhole, and pound the opposition into the dirt.
As An Opponent: He will lurk at the back of your brain, continually haunting you. He takes up residency in your skull and never pays rent. Every moment, every turn will be spent examining the board. Is there a match-five coming up for them? Where are the purples? How can I move in a way which won't set up a match-five on their next turn? What happens if they dumb-luck into a cascade which produces a match-five or three? Well, that last one is simple: you're probably going to die. And under most circumstances, he won't be your first priority -- which gives him that much more time to lurk in the weeds. Waiting. Waiting to end you.
Best Friends: Clint adores anyone who can alter or rearrange tiles, because that may create the match-fives which turn him into a powerhouse. At the ** tier, you can put him with Carol, because Strategic Command will sometimes luck into it. He also works well with ** Magneto, as Max has a power (we'll get to it) which can make a little extra blue show up with both deliberate intent and aim -- but that gives you two characters on the team with red and blue as strong colors. It's the same issue he has with ** Cap, and Steve's one very expensive shot at multiple tile conversion is often best used for something other than creating matches: however, it could be available as an emergency last resort. Once you get into *** and up, you'll find all sorts of partners waiting for him, including the chance to renew his acquaintance with Natasha.
Worst Enemies: It's hard to stop a passive power. You can't deprive Clint of Speed Shots by draining purple or taking it for yourself. His power just reacts, and as long as there's normal purple tiles on the board, something will happen. So Clint's big concerns are characters who can destroy or stall countdown tiles: ** Natasha firing off that Anti-Gravity Device will buy time to think of something, and anyone who can just remove those tiles from the board will shut him down. Which means, with light irony, that ** Carol is one of your better bets against him. Best friends indeed...
Human Torch (Jonathan Storm) (Cover: Fantastic Four #302) Red, Black, Green
Health at L144: 6586
Powers:
Red (4) Fireball Cost: 8 Go with what you know. Johnny throws guess-what at the front-rank opponent, dealing 1698 in damage. As an incidental side effect, the power will also destroy two random red tiles on the field, and those tiles can be of any nature as long as they're red: enemy special tiles and friendly ones are included. The good news is that the two red points from those tiles are then added to your color pool. If cascades and matches result from this destruction, they're resolved normally. (If maxed, the power does 2183 damage.)
Black (5) Inferno Cost: 10 It's been said that if the thing you yell most when entering a fight is your battlecry, New York's premiere superhero team has "Avengers, Assemble!" -- while Manhattan's first family goes with "Johnny, wait!" In this case, he turns up to eight basic color tiles into Attack ones, and each does 146 points of damage at the end of each turn it manages to survive. (These tiles will always appear around the center of the board: if there aren't enough normal tiles available in that area to let Johnny make eight Attack ones, he'll create less.) However, Johnny's fighting style is a little... disruptive, and good luck to anyone who wants to follow in the wake of the flames: the power immediately drains 30% of the team's current blue, purple, and yellow color pool totals.
Green (4) Flame Jet Cost: 5, plus 1 drain per additional turn active Johnny sets up a stream of plasma -- one which requires constant input. This power turns a random green tile into a countdown with a duration of one turn, which resets every time it hits zero: essentially, it goes off at the end of every turn until destroyed. Whatever amount of green pool you have left then does damage at a rate of 136 per point, maxing out at 1222 per turn. The power then drains one green from the pool and, if the tile is still around, goes off the next turn at the lower number. Any green match you make while the power is active will add to your pool and increase damage. (If maxed, 175 damage per point of green, 1571 maximum damage per turn.)
In Play: Johnny is so determined to help you that he's probably going to kill you.
He's a direct damage engine. It's all he does. Johnny goes out there and he does damage. So much damage. He's even partially self-charging: getting a Fireball off when there's at least two red tiles on the board means you're 25% of the way to your next Fireball. But he's also this tier's greatest expert at demolishing your own plans. Inferno does so much damage! -- and generally wrecks any intentions you had for characters to use the powers which requires the colors he just drained on you. Flame Jet sticks around! -- but it's going to keep subtracting and subtracting from your green pool for every turn it's in play, so let's hope you didn't need those points for anything else. And Fireball itself? Usually harmless. Unless, you know, you had any special red tiles on the board. But really, what are the odds that he gets you there? Oh, RNG...?
Play with Johnny and you're playing with fire. You'll want to complement him with characters who are strong in his weak colors -- but those are the colors he drains with Inferno. So maybe you just won't use Inferno. Sure, leave a power with that much damage on the shelf. Or you could just go with a whole team that's strong in his strong colors, leaving you unbalanced and just hoping the board falls right on every turn. Johnny, because he messes with your team's mechanics just through existing, will force you to shuffle and reshuffle, trying to find some configuration where his offense does what it needs to while not handicapping everyone else. This may just lead to a lot of Fireballs. Hope those vanishing reds didn't set up anything bad.
Well, now you know how Ben feels every @#$% day.
As An Opponent: Because the AI will always set off a power as soon as it can pay for activation, you'll have a lot of opportunities to laugh at computer-controlled Johnny, who'll so often start his Flame Jet going when he hits five green -- leaving zero available to do actual damage and yes, a Flame Jet tile which reaches zero green just sits there and sputters until a green match is made to power it. Similarly, Inferno will be triggered once the critical black pool number is reached, and it'll hurt you -- but you can take comfort in knowing that the color drain is sticking in the computer's craw. He's going to hurt you: it's all he's designed to do. And there are times when he can do enough damage to be the deciding factor in a battle: the AI can't ignore that high output any more than you can. But as long as he's on the other side, you can enjoy listening to the other team's new battlecry. "Johnny, wait!" Never gets old.
Best Friends: He's genuinely hard to partner up. If you're planning on covering for his weak colors, you'll either need people with low-cost or passive powers, or you'll be looking at not using things a lot. He'll always help a little on direct hurt, but it's hard to say he makes anyone better just by showing up. Those who create red tiles may boost his offense a little and if we ever find anyone whose power is to guard the color pool from any drain, his role may be reworked from scratch. However, until that day arrives, you'll want to use him in fights when you need relatively fast, frequent hits -- and you'll be stuck wondering how much you're about to regret your choices.
Worst Enemies: Haaaaave you met Ben?
Anyone who creates a lot of special tiles can wreck Inferno: activate the power and find a lone normal one to convert in the board's center, then pay the full drain price anyway. Those who turn attack or countdown tiles back to normal can ruin most of his remaining lifespan. Also, you have his own teammates. They would knock him out if they could. You know that.
Magneto (Max Eisenhardt) (Cover: Uncanny X-Men #3, 2013) Blue, Purple, Red
Health at L144: 7548
Powers:
Blue (5) Iron Hammer Cost: 13 There are very few problems which can't be solved through the simple measure of destroying everything. Turn a random blue tile into a four-turn countdown one. If this tile goes off, the entire board is gone. Period. All sixty-four tiles. Only the reinforced will survive. Max does damage for each tile based on his chart, but doesn't collect color points for any of the wreckage. A new board will then drop in, which may result in matches and cascades: these resolve normally and are permitted to add into the color pool.
Purple (3) Polarity Shift Cost: 9 Choose two non-blue basic tiles. These tiles are now blue. If this results in matches or cascades, resolve them normally. Meanwhile, four random tiles somewhere on the board will change to red, and ibid. (At the highest level, three tiles may be deliberately changed to blue, and five random reds are created.)
Red (5) Magnetic Flux Cost: 14 One random red tile turns into a one-turn countdown. If it goes off, the 5*5 block around that tile is destroyed. (If the tile appears in an edge or corner, radius is appropriately cut.) Does 2825 in damage to the front-rank opponent, plus the damage from the destroyed tiles. Nothing destroyed is added to the color pool, but any matches or cascades from replacement tiles resolve normally.
In Play: Well, you had to figure he'd always be something of a control freak.
At the ** level, Max is about board control as both scalpel and landmine. Polarity Shift can be a subtle power which leads into absolute devastation: two extra blue tiles in just the right place can easily create a match-five plus bonus turn and Critical tile -- and you get to pick the right place. Meanwhile, there's no telling what those random reds are going to do. You might get a match out of it, and then you're that much closer to the Flux. As for the Iron Hammer? You don't have many worries about countdown tiles or pretty much any other special types when they sort of need, you know, a board to occupy. Smash everything and you've probably gotten rid of whatever was troubling you. The Flux, while you can't aim it, might be able to clear problems on a slightly smaller scale while you're waiting on your Hammer, and Polarity Shift keeps the color points flowing. Keep his power supplied and his countdown tiles protected, and Max will solve everything, for that value of "solve" which equals "does anyone know where that building used to be?"
The problem... well, there's a few. First off is that Max, as per usual, Does Not Play Well With Others. Do you have allies that create special tiles? No, you have allies staring at the huge hole where their special tiles once were. You can't use anyone who makes toys when Max is around or you'll be stuck with him on Polarity Shift and pretty much nothing else. Which isn't the worst fate: he can power up anyone who needs blue in their lives, and randomly help out your red supply -- but his biggest offensive weapons will be out of the game. You're also waiting on his two best attacks: for the Flux, it's a short wait and it'll usually go off -- one-turn countdown tiles pretty much need to be hit by a power which can affect them immediately or show up in an unlucky spot --but there's only one power which can truly help the Hammer, and it only emerged last week at the **** level. Even at his best, Max is all about This Is My Plan and if his allies can't learn to work with it, they'd better get out of his way.
As An Opponent: You generally won't face Max at this power level: when the computer uses him as an opponent, it prefers to throw the *** version at you because mega-damage often offends when you're the one taking it. Just keep the same rules in mind for fighting him as fighting with him: any special or countdown tiles you create had better go off in a hurry, and you'll need a way to disable or stall his. If you're planning (or forced) to work with characters who specialize in that kind of attack, he'll need to be your primary target if you're going to have any hopes of getting things working at all. Eliminate him, then proceed normally. Now if you can just eliminate him...
Best Friends: He's actually pretty easy to find complements for: you just need someone strong in green, yellow, or black who doesn't use special tiles. As such, at the ** level, Natasha can boost him (especially with stolen purple feeding the Polarity Shift) and Ares only has to worry about his Sunder. Anyone who relies on lots of blue can tap into what he supplies, and since he can potentially set up match-fives just about on cue, ** Clint slots in right next to him -- if you can deal with the total strong color overlap. But when you're using him, keep in mind that he removes one potential tool from the team's arsenal just by showing up. It's hard to be subtle with Max, and you'll have trouble planning out long-term lasting board effects because his powers demand that the board itself stop lasting.
Worst Enemies: Anyone who can stall or destroy countdown tiles is ruining two-thirds of his game. He also takes quite a bit of power to get going and he's only self-energizing to a limited degree: to that extent, he has a lot to fear from ** Natasha.
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That's half the two-stars, and so I'll stop this lineup here. Next up (whenever and ifever), we'll finish off this tier, with Karla, ** Ororo, ** Thor, ** Steve, ** James, and Bullseye, plus a quick peek at the one I don't use: Daken.
Oh, Daken. If only you would die.
Again.
I hated Daken so much at first but now that I have my own that green matching ability that creates a strike tile is a godsend. That and I dig the Human Torch.
4383897
It's okay to hate Daken. He is kind of a, y'know, total murderous sociopath with pretty much zero redeeming qualities.
Oddly, he's not a bad partner for Johnny. His black power is passive, so he doesn't have to worry about points competition. Same for his purple, (which creates those tiles), so it's free from drain. And the blue only costs five to set off, so any damage Johnny does to that part of the pool may not sting too badly. Plus you're going to be collecting a lot of green for the Flame Jet, so having those matches create Strike tiles turns into a bonus.
It just means playing with... Daken. And when you've come to hate Daken that much, it can be hard to justify burning a roster slot on his Spring-@##. (I call Daken Spring-@##. Sometimes loudly.) It's the same reason it took me forever to put Bullseye into my group: "I hate you. You've spent dozens of rounds ruining my life. So where would you like to sit?" But at the same time, it's one of the game's little glories: that for the board-moving PCs, if you fight them, you can just about always eventually recruit them -- and then that perpetual thorn in your side gets to become the stabbing pain in everyone else's.
And I use ** Johnny myself, especially for events when he's boosted. I just have to recognize that so much of the time, I'm going to wind up looking at a game-saving move which just needs a little more blue and "Oh, right... I used Inferno..."
How far up the line are you? Any workable *** -- *****s yet?
4383927
That's how I feel about Yelena Belova lol. Half my roster is 2-stars and 3-stars with only a couple 1-stars. Most of my 3-stars are kind of undeveloped though. It's frustrating to get Classic Hawkeye token #3459 and be on like, my third Moonstone token. I've mostly got 1-star Black Widow, Iron Man (model 35), and 2-star Storm (classic), Human Torch, and Daken developed and used a lot. Other times I'll switch in one of my 3-stars for that health buffer or really specific power I need.
5-stars?
I'm not that good or lucky. Or maybe I haven't 
paidplayed enough.4383982
By "workable," I mean "enough covers to take them out into the field once in a while." My most advanced 5-star has all of four covers: Legendary tokens from random event draws & 3-Star Champion promotion, plus Command Point spending and dumb luck. I've seen YouTube videos where people talk about new 5-star characters onscreen -- and if you look to the upper right of that screen, you'll see Hero and Command Point totals in the millions. You blink and those characters are maxed out. So someone's figured out a hack for the Steam version, while other hacks might exist for the apps -- and there have got to be people just spending money. But I don't have that kind of cash and I'm not about to trust my Kindle's integrity to hack code.
As might or might not be seen, I've got some three-stars complete and on their way up Champion Road: it gets easier once you start earning the Elite tokens and have a 25% chance of a three-star with every draw. I consider myself lucky on a four-star just to have all three powers active, and no one's anywhere close to thirteen covers. None of my scant five-stars have all of their cover colors gathered, and that's going to take a lot of luck and a ton of Command Points just to try for it.
But you're getting Heroic tokens here and there. And eventually, a Heroic will turn into a four-star. Plus every event has about a 1:80 chance for a Legendary token when you're pulling from a vault, and the Deadpool Daily is 1:300 or 2:300 on any given day. The powerhouses will come. It's just hard to have them arrive in matched sets.
4384021
Ok, cool. Thanks for the info. I wonder who has the time to go out and develop hacks for a mobile game. That's wild.
I don't play MPQ but reading a strategy guide along with the thoughts behind it is interesting. If you are enjoying writing these guides please keep going because I'm enjoying reading them.
I don't plan on ever playing this game, but reading this is an utter delight. I hope you choose to keep it up.
Just gonna put this out there as a possible strategy: **Thor (though ***Thor would also work) and **Hawkeye. Especially trained up, Thor's red and yellow abilities create a bunch of randomly placed tiles, which is match-five potential.
4384049
Agreed!
4383927 It's oddly fitting that Daken works well with Johnny, since Daken once established a (short-lived) pseudo-friendship (because a violent amoral sociopath with issues is more or less incapable of genuine friendship) with the Fantastic Four and Johnny in particular.