Avengers Academy - Shadowcat & Phoenix

Avengers Academy features a PVP team that is easy to acquire and works at lower level brackets.  It'll have a budget, low level focus for the items, and won't use items that are no longer in the rotation at the time of printing.

Shadowcat Kitty Pryde (Infiltrator):
ISO-8:  Steady
The Shadowcat alternate costume is unfortunately critical to this build working, you really need the benefits of starting phased and Strike from the Shadows to make this work.  With the Mind Link from Phoenix up, Kitty will protect and counter nearly every attack thrown at her.

First round, you can Call Lockheed, hopefully on a tactician to get Combat Reflexes for more counterattacks.  Call Lockheed doesn't break phased, so you'll have another turn to dish out some painful counterattacks before you break phased with Sneak Attack, which hits exceptionally hard.  Use Shadow Kick if you have Already Phased, and use Phased Attack to set back up once the debuff falls off.

Phoenix (Blaster):
ISO-8:  Mercurial and Chaotic (see Agent note) or Violent (after 125)
Use Mind Link on Kitty to set her up to protect/counter attacks, and then start focus firing someone with your mind-bullets!  One thing to be aware of is if it looks like someone is going to drop soon, you likely want to make sure you have enough stamina on phoenix to use her Phoenix Fire, so that might mean preemptively recharging.

Phoenix has Psychic Energy attacks, very good for focus firing past protects or onto other phased targets like Agents using Sinister Sceptre, or opposing Kitty Pryde.  Additionally she has a Stun which can be helpful for protecting Kitty once she's had to break Phased.

Infiltrator or Bruiser Agent
ISO-8:  Mercurial and Chaotic (see Agent note)
Key items:
Sudden Support
Goblin Glider (or Custom version)

One thing about this team is that ISOing your team is very particular:  You must make sure that Kitty has the highest max HP between the Agent, Phoenix and Kitty for the AI to properly Mind Link onto Kitty like you want during the setup of the team.  Since the AI always mind links the character with the most HP remaining, that will often be Kitty since she starts the fight phased (barring psychic shenanigans).

Otherwise, this Agent is set up to have one bit stealthy hit on a key opponent.  With three stealthy characters you can often remove a troublesome Agent or Rescue before she gets a chance to remove your Mind Link or Strike from the Shadows, which lets you have free reign to run over them in a flurry of counterattacks.

Summary

Total CP Cost:  65 for Ktty, plus up to 80 for White Crown Phoenix, putting this team around 145CP for the better setup.  You could spend slightly more and get Infiltrator Phoenix, but I currently prefer the Blaster variety.  If you see a ton of Rescue, it might be worth the extra CP though.

This team is fairly buff reliant:  If the opposing team strips your buffs before you get a chance to really act, it can be devastating.  Still, it has a lot of play and is quite the fun team to use.  Phased is very powerful, and if you can take advantage of it you can use it to survive teams that are set up to one shot you fairly easily.

Heroism: Captain America

Introduction

He also has been known to suffer from the
serious condition known as "Liefieldism".

Captain America is one of the most iconic superheroes around, dating all the way back to the 1940s.  Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, his origin in World War II has remained relatively unchanged throughout the years as Steve Rogers, scrawny boy with heart who undergoes a fantastic transformation because of a Super Soldier Serum that grants him the near supernatural ability to not look like a complete doofus with wings on his head like little elf ears, and silly boots.

His intentionally patriotic themes make him fairly polarizing:  Many people misunderstand the character as a jingoist symbol of American superiority, but that fails to address his modern incarnation as more of a fish out of water idealist with a strong individualism streak that often puts him at odds with the government he appears to be a literal representation of.

If you're looking for some good Captain America reading, I heartily recommend both Marvel 1602 (no seriously he's in it), as well as the Death of Captain America if you want something new.  Although it does feature his "Death", it also is a great look at how the character is portrayed and impacts the universe around him.  I'd also suggest his 1970s run which features a very interesting political climate (Watergate, and the Vietnam War both put significant strains on the character).

In Marvel Avenger's Alliance he's largely based on the Marvel cinematic universe take on Captain America, which is basically fairly close to his main comic book incarnation, although he doesn't appear as at-odds with his government as Steve often is.  Carrying his trademark shield, he's an excellent character for protecting your team, and in his World War II costume is one of the stronger Bruisers or Tacticians around.

He's also a valuable buy:  He unlocks a premium mission in Season 1, Chapter 11, and is the team up in Season 1, Chapter 12, Mission 2 which is still the best (or one of the best, pending season 2 analysis) place to farm CP once you're in your mid 100s.  He's also an excellent protector, although it's strongly advised to pick up his WW2 costume (in Bruiser or Tactician flavor depending on if you expect more blasters or scrappers).  I'd suggest Bruiser just because it's vastly better for 1-12-2.

PVP Strategy:  Using Captain America

On Attack

Captain America is great for protecting your squishy
damage dealers like Iron Patriot.  MURRICA!

Cap is an aggressive protector:  He triggers tons of counterattacks, so you want to have him set up to maximize your utility from that with some attack ISO to make sure he hits hard.  He's vulnerable to being debuff stripped however, so beware.  He also provides an excellent buff to the party just for being around, but his protect sequence often leads to his main impact being in the first round or two of a fight.

His attack sequence is tragically a little boring:  Leading Strike, then just use whatever you feel is right for the situation, and refresh Shield Guard once his alternate costume's buff wears off.  This is one of Captain America's main weaknesses as far as a character you're interested in using:  He's a bit of a one-note character.  The note is a good one, sure, but it's still fairly mundane.  This might be because he hasn't had much of an update since they first implemented him, and many of them aren't as complex as the currently available heroes.

He's still a very powerful protector however:  His ability to protect from AOE attacks right at the start of the fight takes away several one hit KO strategies by himself, and he can ruin teams that rely heavily on that.

On Defense

Cap's AI is pretty good!  He will always recharge Shield Guard if it goes down, and like many straightforward heroes he doesn't need much to be good in the hands of the computer.  Correctly ISOing him and providing him with a good backup team is very important, though, as he often goes down fairly quickly to dedicated fire.

PVP Strategy: Facing Captain America

As mentioned earlier, his protect is a buff and can be removed, which renders his utility fairly low if you have a way to give him Cornered, Soulfire him, or Scroll it away.  If not, you're in for a bit of a slog.  Bleeds are also particularly good here, as he makes many attacks if you proc them, which can result in him bleeding out if you really have no way to deal with the protect.

Additionally, his damage is fairly low so against low damage pairings you can often take the time to defensively set up, and wait for his protect to fall off naturally.

Featured Team: Emma Frost & Psylocke

Phoenix Five Emma Frost (Tactician):
ISO-8:  4 Spry, 4 Steady
Emma is a very technical hero:  You will often want to Unlock Potential to either purge debuffs or increase Psylocke's power, since she is your primary bread and butter offense on this team, then follow up by applying Psychic Tap to any characters without Mental Resiliance.

This can take some knowledge of what the characters are capable of:  Heroes with full action defensive moves are not ideal targets, but heroes like Wolverine or Iron Patriot that are assured to attack if possible are great targets for Psychic Tap.  If you are facing a very defensive hero, War Diamond to stun them and hold them out of the action, or use Mental Trauma to apply an AOE Migraine to the opposing team to reduce their damage and keep yourself alive.

Typically, you will want to Unlock Potential whenever possible, unless Emma acts first on your team, to maximize the stamina gain and keep your offensive power up.  Emma is very reliant on the AI to do her damage, and as a result is not the greatest defensive team hero, although her abilities are all very potent.

Modern Psylocke (Infiltrator):
ISO-8:  8 Steady
Your setup for Psylocke is Mental Coordination first turn, then follow up with a Kinetic Shield on either the Agent or Emma if you still have the Psionic Shadow buff, and then follow up with Telekinetic Katana, or Psychic Knives if you need to break through a target that is protecting, or you already had Weak Mind on someone due to Coordinated Attack.

The real benefit to Psylocke here is that the Weak Mind caused by her Telekinetic Katana causes Mental Anguish to do 75% of a character's base health, so you will often want to put Weak Mind on characters you targeted with Emma, or set up to psychic tap if Emma follows Psylocke in the turn order.

Bruiser Agent
ISO-8:  8 Steady
Hoarfrost Mace
Sinister Sceptre
Scroll of Angolob
Shepherd's Staff

What you typically want to do with this build is use Staff at the earliest opportunity, use Angolob to strip buffs, then protect for two astral projection turns by using Sinister Sceptre.  That should give sufficient time for your team to get set up, and the extra healing from the Staff will help make up for the fact that your team has no regeneration of any kind.

Budget Setup:
Custom Posessed Pistol / Custom Goblin Glider
Sudden Support
Power of Four
Damage Amplifier

This Agent wants to kill people, plain and simple.  Attack, and hit extra hard, with your quick action supporting items to allow you to make huge hits, and will proc additional coordinated attacks.  Use Power of Four when you have near full Stamina thanks to Emma so that you can use four Pistol shots to take down a pesky target before you burn out in a blaze of glory.

Summary

Strengths

This team is very good at taking out teams that vastly outclass you in armory and stats, since it is based on Mental Anguish which scales with opponent HP. Additionally, it has a strong "get lucky" factor when you consider both Emma's chance to take very little damage, and coordinated attack proccing multiple times to randomly explode key targets.  That makes for a very efficient team that can roll the dice and win unwinnable fights.

Counters

Ironically, other Psylocke teams are very difficult for this team to beat, and Rescue teams can be a nightmare for Emma due to Rescue purging Mental Anguish.  Also, if you're facing this team, don't forget that refreshing removes Mental Anguish which can take a lot of the edge off this team's ability to damage you.

Rating

Offense:  A+

Defense:  C

Avengers Academy: Black Widow and Hawkeye

Avengers Academy features a PVP team that is easy to acquire and works at lower level brackets.  It'll have a budget, low level focus for the items, and won't use items that are no longer in the rotation at the time of printing.

Grey Suit Black Widow (Tactician):
ISO-8:  Steady
Widowmaker into Flying Kick to remove buffs and put out huge burst damage.  Widow's Bite if you fear lethal retribution from high damage targets.

Heroic Age Hawkeye (Tactician):
ISO-8:  Steady
Heroic Age Hawkeye is the master of multiple focus fire attacks:  Pinpoint Target then follow up with whatever attack is appropriate.  With Trick Arrow for stuns and your primary arrow for a variety of effects you can burn down single targets pretty quickly, particularly when hitting a Widowmaker target.

Scrapper Agent
ISO-8:  Chaotic
Key items:
Sudden Support
High Damage Item (Golden Screaming Eagle)

You want to lead with Sudden Support into a high damage item, to explode the Widowmaker target.  This team, and your agent, really needs to burst down one to two members before the second round is done, or you're probably not going to get there, since both Hawkeye and Black Widow are fairly squishy.

Suggested items:  Bolt Action 4-Bore, and if you are lucky enough to have them, the various damage amplifier items like Arc Reactor Charge are very strong choices.

Summary

Total CP Cost:  72 cp, making this one of the cheapest fully costumed pvp teams you can obtain.

This team wants to focus fire.  Your matches will be fast, furious, and over in a few rounds one way or another.  It's a bit soft to teams with protects since it can be hard to hit the targets you want to hit, but it is a reasonable choice and with a bit of luck with Hawkeye you can have a lot of success, particularly at low levels.

Heroism: Wolverine

Introduction

A mild improvement on the original,
Brown and Tan offers extra turns
when struck while protecting.  Sometimes.
Mostly when the AI uses him.
Yours will never proc.

Wolverine is one of Marvel's most popular properties, appearing in X-Men titles for years, the Avengers, X-Force, basically anything with an X in it, and I'm sure there's someone trying to figure out if he's a good fit for the Fantastic Four right now.  In Avenger's Alliance he's probably one of the first characters you checked the CP cost on, admit it.  And it probably gave you a shock to see the number 90 right up there.  Is he worth it?

The answer is "well yeah, now that they've buffed him".  If you're on the iOS, you're probably not that impressed, but the rest of us see him frequently and bemoan his ability to outheal us, and put out considerable damage.  He snikts bubs with the best of them.  The weapon Kuzuri is also named after him (being Wolverine in japanese).  You'll hear that a lot if you go see The Wolverine, which is in theaters at the time of this writing.

Wolverine

Wolverine is one of the better buys in the game at the 90CP mark:  He tears apart PVE with his self-healing, practical immunity to bleeds, and his ability to pump out large amounts of damage with his Berserker Rage.  Additionally, unlike many characters who are not PVP viable without their costumes, Wolverine is still surprisingly good, which makes him a good buy if you're early on.  Plus, he unlocks a Premium Mission!  It's almost like they want you to buy this guy.

And according to Season 2's previews, he's needed for one of the new mission types (in a solo fight against Sabertooth).  The 90 CP you spend on Wolverine is worth it, bub.

He gains a lot of synergy with other characters that exploit bleeds:  Nightcrawler (Pirate costume) and X-23 are both great choices.  Not surprisingly, since they are in the comics associated with Logan... or outright clones of the guy.

PVP Strategy:  Using Wolverine

On Attack

Shouldn't be standing.
Instead, Berserker Rage for the win.

He's the best at what he does, and what he does is ruin Infiltrators hard.  Once you get a target bleeding, proceed to Berserker Rage them into the ground.  Pesky protectors ruining your day?  Savage Rend them and get them to cut that out.  Can't do that?  Try his stealthy attack that also stuns!  He does it all... if what you want is attack.

Wolverine's biggest flaw is his lack of versatility.  He can't do much other than throw down bleeds, damage, and the occasional stun.  He doesn't provide buffs to the team, and not many other team members will really help him be much more than what he is:  A very powerful part of your team.

On the flip side, he's based on bleeds and can randomly just survive things that should kill you, letting you win fights you just don't really "deserve" to win, particularly against opponents who massively out-stat you.  For that reason, I use him a lot when I first start out.

On Defense

Well, on Defense he can be a house, randomly ruining attack plans and protecting when people don't want him to protect.  Also, his drawback of no versatility leaves very little for the AI to screw up!  A definitely plus for the sniktbub.  Depending on how much Rescue people are running, he can definitely be a solid defense team choice.  See the most recent Avengers Academy for a fairly foolproof low level defense team featuring Wolverine.

PVP Strategy: Facing Wolverine

Wolverine:  Not a fan of musicals.

The trick with Wolverine is many players will pair him with another protect character:  The most important tip I can give you on how to deal with this is that you want to target Wolverine, and kill the other protect first.  Targeting the other protect will proc Wolverine's protect often, and if he's Brown and Tan you run the risk of giving him a lot of extra turns, and that damage piles up fast.

If you're often facing Wolverine, characters who are immune to bleeds (like Colossus, for example) can give him fits, since much of his damage is based on exploiting bleeds.

Also, Bruisers can wreck him fairly quickly, but he has a habit of living through things.  DOTs can help mitigate his Healing Factor, provided they're not poisons or bleeds.

Scheduling Announcement!

Hi everyone!  I know it's been a bit of a hiatus, but between work and other stuff I've not had the time to make as regular updates as I'd like.  So, for the time being, I'll be posting on a Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday schedule, with the following:

Heroism on Tuesdays:  This will feature a single hero (this week, we look at Wolverine to coincide with the release of The Wolverine in theaters).
Avengers Academy on Thursdays:  Featuring a budget or always-available team, to help new players get into PVP smoothly.
Featured Team on Saturday:  A no-holds barred PVP team gets a spotlight.

I hope that you'll all continue to check back, and hopefully my schedule will let me return to a more prolific writing schedule!  Season 2 is coming soon, and I'll be sure to have a lot to say when it does.

Avengers Academy: Cyclops & Wolverine

Avengers Academy features a PVP team that is easy to acquire and works at lower level brackets.  It'll have a budget, low level focus for the items, and won't use items that are no longer in the rotation at the time of printing.

Cyclops (Tactician):
ISO-8:  Steady
Use Evasive Maneuvers whenever it's available, then Optic Blast > Exploit Weakness.  Mega Optic blast is nice when you need to do aoe damage to avoid a single target protect, or are desperate and need to get lucky to win a fight.  Cyclops is great for setting up full stacks of bleeds with Wolverine, and generally providing large surges of damage to single targets, allowing you to burn down teams quickly.

Brown and Tan Wolverine (Scrapper or Infiltrator):
ISO-8:  Steady
You don't need Brown and Tan, but it definitely helps.  The extra turns from his protect don't often proc, but they do lead to wins often enough.
If the target is flanked, you can lead with Savage Rend to proc Adamantium Claws, otherwise use Adamantium Claws, then proceed to Berserker Frenzy on bleeding targets to tear them to shreds.  You can use Savage Rend on protectors if you really need to disable their protects, as well, but often times I find I just want to apply bleeds and let them bleed out, assuming they're not immune to bleeds.  Only use Feral Ambush to attack targets through protects, most notably Phoenix.  Wolverine is one of the better heroes for tearing up Phoenix due to his hard hitting DOTs and his stealthy attack and ability to negate protects.

Scrapper or Generalist Agent
ISO-8:  Steady
Key items:
Curative Reach
Brutal Claw

If you are seeing a lot of Bruisers go Generalist (or Blaster, but that's dangerous at low levels with all the Doctor Strange around), otherwise, Scrapper is excellent for beating down infiltrators that can otherwise give Cyclops problems.  I typically try to cover for Cyclops with the Agent, since Wolverine is pretty durable on his own and you can usually burn down a Bruiser before they get too big off your Wolverine.

Brutal Claw is available through the store, as well as mission gear from 3-5 (epic boss) and 4-2.  It applies a bleed and Ravaged, which you will generally want to allow your agent to prepare targets for Wolverine to rip them apart with Berserker Frenzy.

Curative Reach allows you to heal your team, and is available in the mid 20s.  It's a staple almost all the way through the low and mid level pvp scene, allowing you to keep your team alive long enough to set up and do damage.

This team can also benefit from attacks that grant the party stats:  Wolverine is particularly good with Strengthened for example, so if you happen to have something that grants that as a bonus (please don't use Offensive Accelerator, please), then go ahead and use that.  Protect items on your Agent are also excellent for this team.

Summary

Total CP Cost:  160 if you buy Scrapper Brown and Tan, and base Cyclops (since Phoenix Five isn't readily available).  You might want Infiltrator, in which case the cost goes up to 175.

This team is excellent at burning down single targets:  If you face a lot of Phoenix, this team is one way that you can take her down quickly and efficiently.  It also has a pretty good long game, since Wolverine can take on many heroes one on one without significant danger due to his Healing Factor granting a lot of extra HP throughout a fight.

Heroism: Phoenix

Dark Phoenix
(artist: John Byrne)

Introduction

Phoenix is available from the store for a bargain 48 CP, and has been since the beginning of the game.  Jean Grey is one of the most popular of the original X-Men, first featured in Uncanny X-Men #1 as Marvel Girl.  Her Phoenix persona didn't appear until Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny, and the Dark Phoenix "saga" is one of the iconic moments in Marvel history, being retold numerous times in the cartoons, as well as in X-Men 3:  Last Stand (for better or for worse).

She's also unique in Marvel Avenger's Alliance:  Her Phoenix 5 costume is the only costume that is unique to the game, having appeared nowhere else in Marvel comics, television, or film.

If you're interested in more about Phoenix, the Dark Phoenix run on the 90s X-Men cartoon is excellent, available on Netflix Instant, and features a ton of Cyclops saying the name Jean.  I suppose you could also watch X-Men 3, if you're into that kind of thing.  It's my wife's favorite of the X-Men films, but I can only speak to my previous memories of the film, as I haven't gotten around to rewatching it in time for the writing of this article.  And those memories tell me you're probably better off watching the cartoon.  Or you know what?  Maybe you should just take my word for it, or perhaps get a Marvel Unlimited subscription to read the comics.

Phoenix

Unique to M:AA, her Phoenix Five costume.
(The Comics featured Namor, who is for
legal reasons not in Avengers Alliance.)

Phoenix as mentioned before is a bargain:  She also has several alternate costumes, White Crown Phoenix and Phoenix 5 Phoenix.  The Phoenix 5 costume is a limited time only costume, having most recently been available during the Phoenix Five sale earlier this month, but it is arguably not as good as her always available White Crown costume.  Between her costumes and base abilities she has access to three classes:  Tactician, Blaster, and Infiltrator.  I personally use Blaster White Crown Phoenix, but you may find you prefer Infiltrator, or possibly even the Phoenix Five Phoenix as a Tactician.  Each has their own distinct advantages.

Her White Crown ability is that Phoenix Five refreshes Death and Rebirth, which allows her Phoenix Force powers to revive the first ally (including herself) that dies with 25% of their max HP.  It also unlocks her Phoenix Fire level 9 ability, a catastrophic attack that hits all enemies, does significant damage, applies soulfire to remove buffs, and removes debuffs from your team.  The ability to 'scroll' with her power as well as keep your team alive makes her one of the premier aggressive support team members in the game, and learning to play around her abilities and kill her before she can Phoenix Fire is a significant part of higher tier PVP.  She's also great in PVE, unlocking a premium mission, and is one of the first heroes I suggest new players to buy if they're looking to get into PVP while still playing PVE.

PVP Strategy:  Using Phoenix

On Attack

Phoenix has several attack abilities, each with their own applications.  Often, players are attracted to her Level 2 ability, Telekinesis, for the 60% chance to stun, and overlook her Psi Blast as being "just damage".  However, Migraine is a very powerful ability reducing the next attack's damage from the afflicted target by 30%, which is great for keeping your team alive through something like Modern Thor's Call Thunder, or other large aoe attacks (including opposing Phoenix Fire).  Additionally, Psi Blast is a psychic attack which makes it act stealthy, allowing you to ignore protect and counterattack abilities such as Rescue's Magnetic Attraction.  This can be used to pick off weakened targets or to attack targets weak to Phoenix.

Always available.
Always good.

Her Mind Link is another ability that recently received a buff making it a Quick Action.  Mind Link adds Focused to your team, but more importantly turns the target party member with Mind Link into a protector.  If you have an Agent with a Sinister Scepter, or a series of counterattack items, or are partnering with Kitty Pryde, you can set up teams that counterattack while being immune to damage.  You can also use this to spread the damage around, making it harder to focus fire individual team members who survive a single round.  This can also be used to help trigger Phoenix Fire.

Phoenix Fire is the big whammy:  A huge, hard hitting AOE that strips debuffs from your team, buffs from the opposing team by applying the Soulfire DOT, is catastrophic and cannot be protected or countered, and rarely misses (it can still be negated by special attacks).  This is what turns Phoenix from a good character to a great one:  She can take you from a losing position and catapult you ahead quickly. With White Crown Phoenix this refreshes Death and Rebirth allowing your team to remain alive even longer, possibly long enough to fire off a second Phoenix Fire if the opposing team lives that long

On Defense

Phoenix's AI prefers to Mind Link onto the character with the most remaining health:  It's for that reason that if you are running a Phoenix team that features Kitty or an Astral agent, you should consider only ISO-equipping that character with HP, to increase the chance that Phoenix will properly give the protect to the character you want soaking up hits.  Her AI is pretty darn decent, it will use Phoenix Fire whenever possible, and now that Mind Link is a quick action it doesn't always waste turns spamming useless buffs.

PVP Strategy: Facing Phoenix

It's something like this...
except with arguably better animation.

Fighting Phoenix is an important skill that will test you, particularly as you try to push into the later leagues (Vibranium and Adamantium).  The most important trick is to prevent Phoenix Fire from being used.  The best ways to do this are with specific crowd control abilities, and properly timing your focus fire so that you can trigger Death and Rebirth and then kill Phoenix before she has a chance to act again.  This means knowing the exact damage ranges of your abilities, being a bit lucky not to unintentionally kill characters with big crits, or spamming stuns on Phoenix after you trigger Death to hopefully keep her stunned for the round when she would fire off Phoenix Fire, allowing you to kill her.  Enough DOTs on her can also prevent her turn from happening, assuming that she's not partnered with a character or agent that can remove those DOTs.

She's very hard to kill with Psychic attacks, so keep that in mind if your plan is to attack her that way.  The most dangerous Phoenix teams feature protectors, making it very hard to target her on the critical turns.  Try to have an AOE ability or two you can use to hit her if she has a protector up, or have Stealthy attacks (or Psychic Energy from your own Phoenix, perhaps) to hit her when she's "down".

Phoenix is a top tier defensive hero, so expect to see her often, and learn to play around her.  Hopefully, you'll start seeing some success once you develop that important skill.

Oprah League Rewards! PVP Season 9 recap.

Look under your PVP Tab... YOU ALL GET ANGEL!

There was no Featured Team on Monday due to the end of PVP.  I was going to post this the same day, but the events of the day were very chaotic and I felt I wanted some time to reason out a response.

So this PVP Season went out with a huge surprise, pleasant to most and unpleasant to the top roughly 1% of the players:  Nearly everyone received the Adamantium League bonus!

For me, this isn't a big deal:  I was once again Adamantium on my accounts, and seeing a bunch of my friends who were on the bubble get rewarded at my season end party event was a blast.  The backlash is very vocal against this, but I think we need to take a moment to look at how Playdom could have potentially addressed this, and then look at how they did.

1. Playdom could have rolled things back and recalculated rewards.
2. Playdom could have issued additional rewards to players in their respective leagues to make their accomplishment "worth something".
3. Playdom admits they screwed up, but does not change the rewards.

The first option is what many people were fearing.  I just got this cool reward, will the company then take it away from me?  Thankfully, Playdom seems to have some grasp of how large a PR nightmare that would be.  The Adamantium league posters are out in force telling them that their current solution was terrible, but they're not even 1% of the overall user-base.  Imagine how loud the other 99% would be.

The second option is the one I'd like to hope they considered before deciding to go with option 3.  I spent significant time and effort getting Adamantium, and as a result I think it would have been nice to receive something for that effort other than a number in my tournament history.  That said, this option would require them to spend some significant time to come up with a reward that was fair and wouldn't just leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.  Most likely, that reward would have come in the form of CP or Shield Points or something else that's just a minor benefit, and not anything as major as the free hero.  That said, Adamantium was one of the only ways to guarantee that free hero, since some players did not receive the free Oprah Angel.

The third option is honestly the easiest for the company in many respects.  No more hours of developer time have to be spent implementing fixes or trying to do rollbacks, they just continue working on their already-delayed Season 2 content and fix it for next season.  This option also leaves people with a bunch of free stuff, but that seems to be fine for most their users.  The biggest concern is that for the users who were the heaviest spenders on the game, this solution also feels like the worst one.  How they choose to address that (if they do) will be interesting to see.

This also almost feels like an apology for all the players who got their teams ruined by the plethora of bugs introduced with a week left to go in pvp.  Sorry, everyone who used all my budget team recommendations:  They extra screwed over all the best budget characters (except Phoenix, see the recap!).  Hopefully these bugs are addressed before next season.

But enough of the drama!  You've got some sweet new heroes, look forward to my Angel review next week (I haven't had the time to play with him enough this week), the upcoming feature on Shepherd's Staff (if you got that), and a return to the regular content schedule.

Season 9 Recap

My defense team (lvl 100+):  Iron Patriot // White Crown Phoenix

My offense team (lvl 100+):  Iron Patriot // Modern Thor

My defense team (lvl 50 and under):  White Crown Phoenix // Psylocke

My offense team (lvl 50 and under):  Phoenix Five Emma Frost // Psylocke

Overall, my team selection stayed fairly constant once the nerfs to Rescue came in:  I was using Juggernaut // Phoenix Five Cyclops before that, since the combination can pressure the old Rescue teams fairly consistantly.

I noticed a sharp drop-off of Tacticians being used on defense teams near the end of the season at level 100+:  Instead, there were numerous infiltrator teams featuring Phoenix, Nightcrawler, and the like designed to punish those players.  This gave room for me to run Blaster teams fairly liberally, and I had reasonable success with that approach on offense.  With many more players having access to 8 slot blaster coats than before, I imagine we might see a brief uptick of blasters.

I managed to get lucky enough to get my Staff quests done without spending into the ol' gold stash, but I imagine many were not as lucky.  The item seems very reasonable, particularly if you do not possess scrolls, since the healing is good and one way to beat scroll teams is to take enough turns once they blow their scrolls, and win that way.  All in all though, I felt the quest was slightly too discouraging.  I wish that it was less random number generator specific.  Getting ten pvp spin items was very frustrating, even if it did happen for me.

How did your PVP season go?  Were there things you wanted me to cover that I didn't talk about here?  Drop me a line at tactwidow@gmail.com or reply in the comments below and I will try to address your questions!

Tools of the Trade #2: Quantum Jumper & Power of Four

Tools of the Trade is released every Friday, and features in depth discussion of equipment for your agent.  It features two items:  One that may or may not always be available, usually a limited edition, special operation, pvp or other premium item, and then one item that is either always farmable, or researchable.

Premium Item - Quantum Jumper

How to obtain it:  Store (36 gold)

Effect:  Each other member of your team gains an additional turn and applies Exhaustion after that turn.  2 turn cooldown, STARTS ON COOLDOWN.

Quantum Jumper used to be a huge favorite back when it was immediately usable.  Now that it's not quite as good, I know that some people have benched it in favor of other items, but it still has one of the best effects possible, so it's worth bringing to people's attention.  Unlike the newest shiniest Shepherd's Staff, the Quantum Jumper gives you the turns _right now_, which can be very important when fighting heroes like Rescue or Phoenix, where allowing the opposing team a chance to respond is deadly.  However, I honestly can't suggest springing the gold on this item these days, because there are two similar items, one of which, Magnetic Field Generator, is our everyday item today.

If you are using the item, you'll probably want to pair it with hard hitting or buff-focused heroes that can keep you around long enough to use it.  Wonder Man springs to mind as a hero that can really take advantage of extra turns, allowing him to build huge Finest Hour! hits and piles of buffs on himself.

Everyday Item - Magnetic Field Generator (and Custom Magnetic Field Generator)

How to obtain it:  Drops from Magneto, the epic boss in 4-4.  (Requires Storm as a deploy to unlock the fight).

Effects:  Grants a shield to your team, and if the shield is broken (not expired or removed by effects) it grants an additional turn to that team member and applies Exhaustion..

Magnetic Field Generator is one of the first truly good defensive items you're likely to encounter in Avengers Alliance, assuming you're not springing for gold items.  Shields are powerful proactive defensive measures, and extra turns are some of the best possible things you can gain in this game.  This item provides the both.  It is a full, non-quick action to apply, keep that in mind, and you'll find this item to be not so great against agents with a Scroll, or Rescue, but often this item if correctly used and at a timely moment, will win you fights by itself.  A really solid pickup.

The only difference between the regular and Custom generator is that the Custom no longer has the Tech type.  This is barely relevant, there's a couple of things that prevent Technology effects, but realistically this item will be the same no matter which version you have.

It's also worth noting that 4-4 is one of the most efficient ways to farm Command Points, so in your quest for this item you might just get some CP along the way!

Avenger's Academy: Nightcrawler & Phoenix

Avengers Academy features a PVP team that is easy to acquire and works at lower level brackets.  It'll have a budget, low level focus for the items, and won't use items that are no longer in the rotation at the time of printing.

Swashbuckler Nightcrawler (Infiltrator):
ISO-8:  Steady
Shadow Dance >> Triple Threat, with his Night Kick if you absolutely need to stun someone critical (like Modern Thor), and Ambush to trigger bleeds once they're stacked on a target.  Repeat as needed.

White Crown Phoenix (Blaster or Infiltrator are both fine):
ISO-8:  Steady
Phoenix is fairly straightforward.  Mind Link Nightcrawler if he has (or will easily get) combat advantage, otherwise whoever has the most HP is a good choice.  I often only attack with Mind Blast, since it allows you to avoid protects and cannot be countered.  Telekinesis is good if you absolutely need to stun someone.

Once Death and Rebirth triggers, use Phoenix Fire ASAP and watch the opposing team burn!  If you have White Crown Phoenix, this will give you another Death and Rebirth which is pretty nice.

Bruiser Agent
ISO-8:  Steady
Key items:
Curative Reach
Brutal Claw

Brutal Claw is available through the store, as well as mission gear from 3-5 (epic boss) and 4-2.  It applies a bleed and Ravaged, which with Nightcrawler's alt costume allows you to bring a lot of pain really quickly.

Curative Reach allows you to heal your team, and is available in the mid 20s.  It's a staple almost all the way through the low and mid level pvp scene, allowing you to keep your team alive long enough to set up and do damage.

Other items are of your preference:  I am fond of things that provide shields to help keep Phoenix and Nightcrawler alive longer.  Magnetic Field Generator is a particularly good one, from the epic boss in mission 4.4.

Summary

Total CP Cost:  160 if you buy both alt costumes with their cheapest choices, 96 without costumes.

This team is slightly more expensive than the last one I featured, but it has one advantage:  The costumes aren't 100% required to run this team.  They are certainly a huge improvement, but the base characters aren't useless, unlike some costumes which really make or break the characters.

This is a very defensive team, that wants to play the long game.  Use this team if you see a lot  teams with a Tactician running around, because it can quickly mop the floor with them thanks to Nightcrawler.  If you are seeing heavy (2-3) tactician teams, you may want to run the Infiltrator Phoenix instead.

DISCLAIMER:  At the time of writing, Swashbuckler Nightcrawler is bugged, and his Ambush is not proccing Hemorrhage.  I still believe he's fine to use, but be warned.

Heroism: Red Hulk

Introduction

Red Hulk was the Adamantium reward for Season 8, and more importantly, is being released for general sale on the 11th of July.  You might be wondering "Why is the Hulk Red?" and more importantly "What can he do for me?"

Red Hulk

Red Hulk is the now-Hulked out alter-ego of General "Thunderbolt" Ross, best known for telling his daughter Betty to "keep out of it, this is man talk" in the classic Hulk cartoon, and sending insane amounts of the army's resources to capture a green dude with anger management issues.  Now, after experimenting with Gamma radiation because why the hell not, he is a Red Hulk.

Red Hulk looks like he's been out in the sun too long.

He should cost 135cp when released (like all the other pvp heroes) when released, which puts him on the expensive side of the generally available heroes.  Should you buy him?  Well, he fills the same role as Captain America basically:  A tactician protector with reasonable aggressive power.  Unlike Captain America, he's not required to unlock any missions, but it is very likely in the future that he will be needed in a Special Operation mission as a deploy.  This means that buying him is a fairly reasonable proposition down the line, to try and save some gold and gain access to the loot from that epic boss.

Being similar to Captain America isn't really a strike against using Red Hulk:  If you need a protector character, he's one of the stronger ones, due to his protect granting him Energy Steal which steals health and stamina when attacked, and granting him Heat, a buff that stacks and as it stacks grants both Burning and Phosphoric to his attacks, as well as building into a critical mass Nova attack.

Because he can create Burning, he's a fine pairing with Human Torch or Mark 42 Iron Man, but also with other durable team members to keep him alive, such as Doctor Strange, Emma Frost, Rescue, Invisible Woman (Future Foundation) or Omega Sentinel.  He can also be used reasonably well to protect glass cannons like Quicksilver, although his protect being buff based makes him particularly susceptible to debuff removal.

PVP Strategy:  Using Red Hulk

On Attack

Little Known Fact:  Red Hulk often
has a stat bar for a face.

You generally want to lead with Gamma Bomb unless their team has a clear way to remove debuffs that hasn't been used yet (Omega Sentinel's Nanoheal Array, an agent with a Scroll, etc).  If they can remove debuffs, consider leading with Searing Smash to build up Heat, or just start using Bulwark immediately if their team has heavy hitters or you need the protect.

Bulwark is your core skill:  You will want to use it when you can to soak up attacks, acting as a constant drain on the HP and Stamina of the opposing team, and building up Heat.  Once you have 30% heat, Bunker Buster hits particularly hard, and if you can build to 70% you can unleash on your enemies and do significant damage.

In order to make sure Red Hulk can get to that point, you will want to either heal and shield him with your team, allowing him to protect and build to the point where you can win the fight.  Try and avoid Meltdown, as although it deals massive damage it stuns Red Hulk and hits your own team.  Phoenix is a fine partner if you actually want to trigger Meltdowns, since she can help a teammate survive then use Phoenix Fire to follow up after your Meltdown and polish off their team.

On Defense

Red Hulk's AI is reasonable, but not spectacular.  He often tries to build into Meltdown, and almost always leads with Gamma Bomb.  I don't tend to use him on my defense teams personally, because he's a micromanagement hero, and those tend to perform badly on defense compared to more straightforward characters that the AI understands.

PVP Strategy: Facing Red Hulk

You can approach beating Red Hulk by removing his Heat buffs and keeping his Bulwark down, either with Cornered status, Soulfire and Scroll attacks, or stealthy attacks to avoid his protection.  He doesn't present much of an offense without Heat, and if you can avoid giving that to him you will do well.

Ask Tact Widow - 7/9/2012

Dear Black Widow,

Me and my friends are often paired against each other in PVP, and because I've spent a ton of my money on this game I often beat them.  I'd like to give them a chance to win once in a while, what can I do?

Sincerely,
Wallet Warrior

Dear Wallet Warrior,

There comes a time when winning isn't everything.  I suggest replacing your armory with Mystical Munitions. Those 64 gold items aren't what makes a winner, what makes a winner is spirit!  If you really like the look of all those Sorcerous Scepters you just bought, perhaps my buddy Luke Cage will help your friends have a fighting chance.  Luke's feeling awfully lonely on the flight deck these days, and could use the company of his best friend Iron Fist on your defense team.

Dear Black Widow,

I've just started this game, and my friends keep telling me not to spend my gold.  I really, really want to recruit Spider Woman, she's been my favorite character ever since she was really the Skrull Queen in Secret Invasion.  Why won't my friends let me do this, and what should I spend that gold on?

Confused,
Spider-Woman's Only Fan

She's sad because she's terrible in
Avenger's Alliance.

Dear Spider-Woman's Only Fan,
Please, please don't buy Spider Woman.  She's only good for flying airplanes.  That said, you really should spend your early gold on armory tabs:  You will be able to fill them with all those random mystical munitions and things in order to have a fighting chance against your friend, who sent in that earlier letter.  Plus I'm pretty sure he'll be fielding Luke Cage soon, that should help!

Regards,
Black Widow (the only real Spider Woman)

Have questions?  Email tactwidow@gmail.com, or leave a question in the comments.

Featured Team: Iron Patriot & Modern Armor Thor

Iron Patriot (Tactician):
ISO-8:  8 Steady
21-Gun Salute if you have 2 or more charge stacks and their team is still up.  Overcharge to follow it with more of the same next turn.  If down to 1 or 2 targets, you can overcharge into Repulsor Cannon instead to kill off a single target instead.  Only use Plasma Blade if you have no other options available to you.

Modern Armor Thor (Bruiser OR Blaster):
ISO-8:  8 Steady
Thor is very simple:  If you don't have strengthened, use Inspire Bravery to gain strengthened, then Call Thunder and ruin their team.  If they have an area protect up like Omega Sentinel or Rescue, or have Phased targets, use single target attacks like Hammer Throw and save your Inspire Bravery until the protector is dead or the targets are unphased.

Generalist Agent
ISO-8:  8 Violent / 8 Steady (lower levels)
Power of Four OR Protect Item
Maggia "Triggerman"
Neurotrope
Scroll of Angolob

Say hello to my little friend!  Use your quick action items and then spray bullets like it's going out of style!  Infiltrator can also work instead of generalist.  Only use Power of Four if you're sure you can hit everyone (aka the protector is dead).  I might still leave Power of Four on for defense, and hope to get there.

The other option is to replace Power of Four with a protect item, and try to use your Agent to soak up attacks and allow Iron Patriot or Thor another barrage, and triggering "Triggerman" counterattacks along the way.  If I went that route, I would likely use Infiltrator's armor instead of Generalist.

Budget Setup:
Custom Posessed Pistol / Custom Goblin Glider
Sudden Support
Curative Reach
Damage Amplifier

This Agent wants to kill people, plain and simple.  Attack, and hit extra hard, with your quick action supporting items to allow you to make huge hits and finish off weakened targets that your team of AOE murder machines left behind.

Summary

Strengths

This team is a glass cannon:  You spend all your resources trying to make sure they're dead before you are.  Explosive damage potential and not much survivability is the name of the game.  You want an aggressively slanted armory, and as many Blasters and Scrappers as you can recruit to support this kind of team.  (Obviously any hero bonus is good, but still, priority should be towards aggressive bonuses.)  On the bright side, this team will often demolish some teams even on defense, due to the burst damage nature of the team.

Counters

Phoenix and Shadowcat are very hard to kill in tandem with this team, as are agents with Sinister Scepter:  basically, any team that can blank your initial assault can be brutal.  Rescue going before Thor often results in a greatly reduced damage output as well.  If you're up against this team, stripping Might of Mjolnir off of Thor and having ways to remove debuffs can quickly make this team irrelevant, as the AI often uses Full Overcharge at poor times leaving Iron Patriot out of options and letting you burn down Thor before he gains his full offensive potential again.

Rating

Offense:  A+

Defense:  B

Mid-Season Ch-ch-changes

Hello everyone,

Hopefully Season 9 is treating you well!  I know that a lot of people have expressed some frustration at the rating requirements, but I've found that I'm personally edging ever closer to that 1550 mark as the days go on.

Today, we're going to talk about the changes that Playdom rolled out on the 5th.  There's a new 64 gold item that has incredibly synergy with Sinister Scepter, Warbringer Axe has had major changes made, several heroes (Thor, Sif, and Phoenix) had their buffing attacks changed to Quick Actions, Cyclops' Natural Leader now works properly, and the biggest change:  Rescue has had significant balancing changes made.

Let's start with talking about the new stuff!

Sorcerous Scepter

The item in question is Sorcerous Scepter, intended as a complimentary weapon to Sinister Scepter.  It has a Ground Magic attack that hits all enemies, doesn't break Phased, is Stealthy, and applies the Pain debuff (like Shatterstar) that increased the damage that character takes by 8, and stacks up to three times.  It has a chance to counterattack.  What's not to like?

Well, for starters, it's a Ground attack.  While the changes to Rescue (see below) might reduce her frequency, there are already several top tier Flying characters that many of you likely encounter with some frequency that make this attack less relevant.  Magneto, War Machine, Phoenix (see below) and Rescue are all still going to be common at higher tiers of play, and all of them can ignore this attack with ease.  That doesn't mean you don't want to use this item when combined with Sinister Scepter, as any way to continue to apply pressure while Phased is excellent, but it's worth keeping in mind.

On to the changes to heroes!

Heroes

Rescue

Rescue has been something of a scourge of upper tier PVP, removing buffs, attacking, and keepin' the Blaster man down with her omnipresence.  In response, Playdom has changed several things about her, and as a result it's less of a groan inducing moment when you see her across the battlefield from you.

1. Reconstruction Matrix no longer removes DOTs, and has had its healing reduced slightly.  This is coupled with a bugfix that makes it correctly apply to the entire party when the AI uses it.  Ultimately, this means that Rescue can no longer completely invalidate DOT-based teams, although she still has Panacea Response to remove those debuffs.
2. Panacea Response now has only a 70% chance to remove a debuff instead of 100%.  This change means that sometimes, Emma will be able to stick that Mental Anguish and pop Rescue a new one, or your Wolverine team will continue to have its bleeds up.  Perhaps Shield Breaker won't be removed.  Either way, this change isn't hugely significant, as I've fought Rescue a few times and found that 70% chance of removal to mean that you don't want to rely on her not removing buffs.  Still, if you're desperate, you can now try to stick things through Panacea Response, where that was not the case before.
3. Magnetic Attraction does not magnetize attacks she could not protect against.  This means that stealthy attacks or psychic attacks (like those from phoenix or black widow) are much better now against Rescue, and infiltrators now have a fighting chance against her, even if she can disable their counterattacks.

All in all, this still leaves Rescue in the position she was in before:  An excellent support character.  What it does do, however, is leave some cracks in the armor that weren't there before.

Phoenix (Thor and Sif)

JEAAAANN!!! has had only one change made, but it might be more significant than all the changes above.  Her Mind Link is now a quick action.  That dramatically improves her on defense, because one of the problems was that she would often just Mind Link her turns away and leave kills on the table.  No longer!  Now she can set your team up, and continue to apply pressure.

I expect this to lead to a number of Phoenix teams being significantly better on both defense and offense.  Expect to fight her, and learn to beat her, because she's very strong now.

Thor and Sif also had their buff-applying attacks made into Quick actions, but I don't expect that it will dramatically increase their appearance in PVP.  It could potentially increase the number of Thors that people use on offense, but it's fairly hard to account for that, and he will still be a marginal defensive choice.

Cyclops

The counterpart to Jean!  But in all seriousness, he had his Natural Leader buff fixed, and it procs fairly frequently now, making him even better than he was before.  Apparently the AI is also improved, but I have yet to fight him to see how.

Hulk

Hulk now smashes with dramatically increased efficiency.  Changes to the Warbound buff makes World War Hulk better, he now gains his own buff, and Hulk now Hulk Up!s on every turn, making him a force to be reckoned with.  You could theoretically combine him with Jean and turn him into an unstoppable green murder machine.  This change was much needed, as Hulk was definitely low on the totem pole for a 90cp character.

These changes I believe to be the major ones, although there are more minor changes that I haven't discussed here.  Feel free to discuss them in the comments, and I will be happy to respond with my thoughts on them.

Tools of the Trade #1 - Sinister Scepter & Sudden Support

Tools of the Trade is released every Friday, and features in depth discussion of equipment for your agent.  It features two items:  One that may or may not always be available, usually a limited edition, special operation, pvp or other premium item, and then one item that is either always farmable, or researchable.

Premium Item - Sinister Scepter

How to obtain it:  Special Operation 4, Season 9 PVP Roulette

Damage Type:  Magic

Effects:  Customized damage (moderate), Inflicts Bane, grants Astral Form

Sinister Scepter is currently unique, it is the only item that grants the Phased status, similar to Shadowcat or Vision.  While Phased, your Agent will avoid a huge variety of attacks, the only exceptions being Psychic attacks.  One way to maximize the defensive capacity of the Phased status is to equip Techno-Organic Endoskeleton to your agent, making them immune to bleeds, poisons, and most importantly, Psychic attacks.  This can turn your agent into a literally unassailable monster.  Combine with a Protect effect of some kind and you've got yourself an Agent that will be a huge problem for opposing teams.

The other way you can abuse this item is with things that make you skip turns for powerful effects, like Shepherd's Staff or Arc Reactor Charge.  Both together with this and perhaps Sudden Support (featured below) will allow your agent to hit incredibly hard, then be immune to follow up damage.

The last feature of Sinister Scepter is that it applies Bane.  This is a neat feature, although limited, as only four Heroes deal magic damage on their own, and a few more have effects that inflict Soulfire.  This is primarily useful when paired with Custom Possessed Pistol, as it already hits incredibly hard, and so that 50% increased damage can result in massive damage from the Agent.  This can also be supported with the previously mentioned Arc Reactor Charge and Sudden Support to do massive damage to single targets, and it conveniently protects you during the setup time.

Everyday Item - Sudden Support

How to obtain it:  Buy for 58,840 silver and 15 Shield Points from store (after researching it at level 63)
Research tree:  Flexibility 1 > Sensory Perception > Advanced Targeting > Kinetic Stabilizers > Force Manipulators > Stasis Fields > Quantum Overdrive

Effects:  Quick Action, grants Sudden Support buff which gives increased stats on the immediate follow up turn.

Sudden Support is a very neat gem in the researchable items:  It's a quick action which is always appreciated, and it has a powerful impact on your pvp game by allowing your agent to have explosive bursts of damage.  When combined with hard hitting items like Custom Possessed Pistol, Golden Screaming Eagle or Custom Bolt-Action 4 Bore you can absolutely wreck people.

It's worth noting that if you have other quick actions that increase damage, like Arc Reactor Charge or the like, you need to use them before you use this item, because the stat boost for this item wears off after the turn it grants, unlike some of the others which grant a damage increase to your next attack.

As one of the easiest to obtain quick action support items, I can't recommend it enough.  Get this item!  You'll definitely want the ability to build a damage-surge heavy agent for use on offense.

Avengers Academy: Human Torch & Doctor Strange

Much like the Featured Team column, Avengers Academy features a PVP team that is easy to acquire and works at lower level brackets.  It'll have a budget, low level focus for the items, and won't use items that are no longer in the rotation at the time of printing.

Unlike the Featured Teams, I won't be giving ratings to these teams:  They're all excellent low level options, but they don't usually scale into the endgame, while many of the endgame teams scale downwards.

Annhilius Human Torch (Bruiser and Blaster are both acceptable):
ISO-8:  Steady
Your plan with Torch is Flame Stream > Fireball, repeat until they are dead.  Use his Nova Blast if you get low.  Avoid Ring of Fire like the plague.

Why the Bruiser costume, you ask?  Because at low levels, many agents are using the free Scrapper uniform (on Facebook anyhow), and you want to avoid being weak to other Doctor Strange teams.  Keep in mind if you see a lot of opposing Human Torches, you will want to switch to Blaster.  Blaster is also cheaper on the old CPs, so use your best judgment.

Modern Doctor Strange (Tactician):
ISO-8:  Steady
Strange is more complex than Torch, but still relatively straightforward.  Vapors of Valtorr first, then for future turns, if you have Power of the Principales you want to use Teresing Boost or Shield of the Seraphim to protect and heal party members who are in danger, then blast with Bolts of Balthakk.  If you have Powers and are firmly ahead you can use Vapors, but it's recommended to save it for healing.

Unlike with Torch, where Blaster can be decent, Strange really wants to be a Tactician.  Triggering counterattacks from Infiltrators can be avoided, but you really don't want opposing tacticians getting multiple turns pounding on Blaster Doctor Strange.

Tactician Agent
ISO-8:  Steady
Key items:
Curative Reach
Pyro Tonfa // Phosphorous Pang

Curative Reach allows you to heal your team, and is available in the mid 20s.  It's a staple almost all the way through the low and mid level pvp scene, allowing you to keep your team alive long enough to set up and do damage.

The other item your Agent is fielding for this team is an item that applies Burning, to allow the Human Torch to just fireball away without having to waste turns setting up.  Fireball is your main damage output, so the quicker you can get started with it the better.  Focus on applying Burned to members of the opposing team that don't have it yet.

Your agent has some flexibility:  If you're lucky enough to have one, I'd suggest a Sinister Scepter for its synergy with Strange, and anything that can apply Soulfire or remove buffs (like a scroll) would be good as well.  As you level, Sudden Support and other quick action items that increase your damage output are also excellent choices.

Summary

Total CP Cost:  Anywhere from 119 to 144, with 119 being both Blasters, and 144 being for Bruiser/Tactician.

This team hits hard, particularly at low levels where Torch's base damage is very impressive.  It's also not lacking in the sustainability department, with numerous damage over time effects, shields, and heals from Strange allowing you to continue to fight for quite some time.  You need to be very careful when fighting opposing Torch teams however, since you don't want to get locked in a Torch vs Torch fight (they never end).  Protect Strange, he's the lynchpin of the team, and you should be OK.

Heroism: Black Widow

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Heroism! Every wednesday, I'll be featuring a single hero, talking about pairings, synergies, and strategies for both using and facing the hero. I'm going to start by featuring the title character of this blog, Black Widow!

Black Widow

Black Widow is one of the three "starting" heroes, alongside Iron Man and Hawkeye.  She stands out, however, because she is one of the best deals for starting early PVP  Unlike Iron Man, whose PVP strength is largely tied to a limited time only costume, Grey Suit Black Widow is one of the better PVP characters and is available right out of the gate for a bargain 45cp.  Her Tactician costume makes her a force to be reckoned with.  That makes her ideally suited for low level PVP, since she's both cheap and effective for a very long time.

This costume is the good one.
Ugly, but good.

Unfortunately, without the Tactician costume, she's terrible.  The Infiltrator option is much worse, providing only a marginal benefit and only then after she's been attacked.  Tactician Widow, on the other hand, gets free counterattacks on nearly every non-stealthy, non-psychic attack, and her attacks are stealthy to boot, allowing you to dodge annoying protects and finish off weakened targets with ease.

The major drawback to using Black Widow at low levels is that she relies heavily on her Level 9, Widowmaker, to do serious damage.  This means that if you want to sandbag (keep yourself at low levels) you're going to need to spend some quality time with the airplanes to make her useful while maintaining your low level.  That's not to say she's useless, but she is much less powerful, and without her level 6 she's basically worthless.

On the bright side, she's probably at least level 3-4 because there aren't many other options at low levels to progress through the game, and most players have used her for at least a few missions by that point.

Widow is quite good in PVE, in case you're worried that this purchase will not help you if your intent is to play through the game and not sandbag or pvp at low levels for a long time.  She's an excellent, almost mandatory addition to your stable of heroes.

PVP Strategy:  Using Black Widow

Not pictured:  Dead members of the opposing team.

On Attack

Black Widow excels at ruining the day for every single Blaster, or character who relies heavily on buffs.  With Widowmaker and Flying Kick you can demolish most blasters in a single turn (or very close to it), or kick the buffs off a problem character while leaving the blaster stunned.  If there's no blaster, you go directly to the problem character and hopefully set them up to be six feet under before you even have to take an action.

If the character you want to stun doesn't have any buffs, that's ok too:  Just use Widow's Bite to apply Weakened and hopefully that stun while you're at it.  The chance to stun is 75%, which is high enough to be fairly reliable.  There'll be the occasional match where you fail to stun at an inopportune moment and swear you'll never use Widow again, but then you'll come to miss the guaranteed damage, stealthy attacks, stuns, and counterattacks that she brings to the table.

Good pairings with Widow are other characters who can focus fire effectively.  Psylocke, Iron Patriot War Machine, Juggernaut, Cyclops, Blue Costume Quicksilver, Omega Sentinel, or any other hero with Deadly Crits will be a good choice to pair with Widow.  Also, if your agent can grant additional turns to Widow, she can eat up opposing teams singlehandedly.

Poor pairings are generally protect heroes:  No sense in minimizing the number of counterattacks you get, since it's one of her best features!

On Defense

Don't use Black Widow on defense if you can avoid it:  At low levels it might be ok, but at higher levels players are much smarter about facing her, and her AI is somewhat bad.  It often doesn't attack the same target that it puts Widowmaker on, and the AI rarely focus fires down individual team members, which is what Black Widow excels at.

PVP Strategy:  Facing Black Widow

The first and most important thing to do when facing Black Widow is to avoid attacking her until the rest of her team is dead.  The only exceptions to this are attacks that apply Off Balance, Generalized, or otherwise incapacitate her to prevent her from making counterattacks.  She counters almost every single attack, so you want to avoid taking all that extra damage until the end of the fight, when you can mitigate it.

Additionally, her AI is not so great, so if you avoid taking lots of extra damage from her counterattacks you should be OK.

Featured Team: White Crown Phoenix // Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde)

White Crown Phoenix (Infiltrator):
ISO-8:  6 Mercurial, 2 Spry
Your plan with Phoenix is to Mind Link on Kitty, then either move mind link between your agent and kitty as they are phased, or attack with one of her attacks.  If someone dies, Phoenix Fire.

Shadowcat (Infiltrator):
ISO-8:  8 Steady
Your basic plan with Shadowcat is to use Call Lockheed first round, then Sneak Attack to break Phased, Shadow Kick next round, then use Phased Attack to repeat the process.  Try to make sure to use Call Lockheed on a tactician to get Combat Reflexes.

Bruiser Agent (or Infiltrator, use Blaster WC Phoenix if so)
ISO-8:  8x Forceful
Sinister Scepter
Neurotrope // Norn Stone
Scroll of Nomaj // Angolob // Shepherd's Staff
Arc Reactor Charge // Sudden Support

This Agent is specifically designed to buff the party and have things to do while it hides under Astral Form.  Ideally, you get to open after Rescue or their Agent use their buff removal, so you can go Neurotrope >> Arc Reactor Charge >> Sinister Scepter, and put a huge hurt on someone.  This stuns your agent, but conveniently enough, you're hidden behind Astral Form and can only really be attacked by psychics.

Budget Setup:
(Custom) Only for Killing
Digital Decoy
Curative Reach
(Custom) Posessed Pistol

This setup is designed to be an aggressive one:  Only for Killing applies Mental Anguish much like Emma Frost, so use it on characters who will attack primarily with their first action, otherwise, either apply Digital Decoy (do this the turn before Shadowcat will be unphased) or unload with the Possessed Pistol.  You can use Posessed Pistol to set up devastating Sneak Attacks with Shadowcat.

Summary

Strengths

This team is a very powerful defensive team, and the ISO-8 are set up to take advantage of the AI as much as possible by making sure that Kitty's HP is higher than the Agent's and Phoenix.  Phoenix's AI will mind link the character with the most HP, and much of the time that will be Kitty, allowing you to string counterattacks if your opponent doesn't know what's up.  This team also is fairly durable even if they do know what's going on, since the agent and Kitty are often invulnerable and Phoenix has multiple resurrection effects.

On offense, this team can punish teams without both Rescue and an Agent with scrolls, getting numerous counterattacks and being immune to most attacks as they do so.

Counters

This team is very soft to psychic attacks, as well as a sustained buff removal team like Rescue and an agent with scrolls.  Rescue's AI is very soft, but on defense this team struggles against her.  You want to focus fire down Phoenix, making sure to kill her twice with back to back attacks to prevent her from using Phoenix Fire.

Rating

Offense:  B+

Defense:  A-

Featured Team: Brown-And-Tan Wolverine // X-23

Wolverine ISOs:  Steady (Attack/Accuracy/Health)
X-23 ISOs:  Steady (Attack/Accuracy/Health)
Agent ISOs:  Chaotic (All Stats)
Total CP cost:  270

Do you like bleeds?  OF COURSE YOU DO.  Do you like snikting bubs?  OF COURSE YOU DO!  Do you have trouble winning fights against Rescue?

Well I can't help you there, buddy!  This isn't the team for you.  But if you like solid teams that punish nearly every other kind of team that likes to take multiple actions, this one is for you.  It's particularly good against teams that run scrappers, particularly Quicksilver teams.   This team is also particularly good against teams that rely heavily on shields for their defense and healing, since bleeds circumvent many of the shields not provided by Omega Sentinel or Rescue.

Rescue is unfortunately a huge problem for this team, which is why the Agent is set up the way it is.  With the Scrapper Aegis Armor you can apply Targeted to Rescue or other tough defensive heroes, and with Monstrosity and Custom Bolt Action 4-Bore you can hit incredibly hard and entirely circumvent the debuff skipping your next turn.

This team has many viable other item choices, including avoiding that entirely in favor of setups including Neurotrope, Kuzuri, Scroll of Nomaj (in addition to Angolob) in an attempt to beat Rescue, or by using an Infiltrator Agent with something like Sinister Scepter to allow you to freely counterattack her if she attacks your agent.

Budget Agent Build:
Infiltrator Armor (preferably) or any 8 slot armor of your choice.
Custom Posessed Pistol
Magnetic Field Generator
"Snikt!" // Golden Feral Claws
Digital Decoy

The basic strategy for this team depends on the turn order.

If Wolverine acts first:  Use Adamantium Claws on an Infiltrator if possible, otherwise, use it on the most annoying non-Bruiser.  X-23 should follow up with her Blades of Rage, and your Agent should use Custom Bolt Action on the bleeding target to try to polish them off either right there, or on the next bleed tick.

If X-23 acts first:  Use Snikt on a suitable target, preferably a scrapper if present.  Wolverine should target a different target with Adamantium Claws.  The Agent in this case should focus fire on the target Wolverine has bled, to try to kill it off quickly.

If the Agent acts first:  This is the worst scenario.  Hopefully their team has done something you need to react to, otherwise, I would pick a target to focus fire.

If you lose someone early:  This is where this team shines.  Even if one member goes down, X-23 or Wolverine can both win fights entirely on their own, provided that you're a bit lucky with their proccing survival or with Berserker Rage.

If the target you want to attack with X-23 is not the Trigger Scent target, Blades of Rage is your best option.  Use her Assassin's Strike to finish off characters like Rescue who you might not be able to kill, but can get low.

This is a really fun and flavorful team, which I highly suggest you give a try.  It's also a decent team on defense, since it has several ways to get lucky and win even with poor AI.