Featured Team: Rescue // Phoenix

Heroic Age Rescue -Tactician

ISO-8: 8x Deft (Health/Defense/Evasion)

White Crown Phoenix -Infiltrator

ISO-8:  5x Steady (Health/Attack/Accuracy), 3x Mercurial (Evasion/Attack/Accuracy)

Agent - Bruiser

ISO-8: 8x Chaotic ISO-8
Armory:  This comp will work with many type of armory balances, but I prefer ones that lean towards attack, since this team is naturally strong defensively and needs the extra punch.

Optimal Gear:

1. Warbringer's Axe
2. Scroll of Angolob // Scroll of Ocerebi Nomaj
3. Neurotrope
4. Blade of the Guardian // Kuzuri

Starting Player Gear

(This is intended for players who are new to the game, and do not have access to gold items, limited edition items, or the like.  Consider it the "budget" recommendations, although I will recommend many customized items from epic bosses, so expect to do a bit of farming.)

1. Curative Reach
2. Custom Magnetic Field Generator
3. Custom Bolt Action 4-Bore
4. Custom Only For Killing

Team Strategy:

Rescue has a lot of stamina and with luck you will have Neurotrope give her regenerating stamina, so your plan for her is to always use Flyby Attack (unless you have Exhaustion, this is very important) and then either her Protector Protocor or Reconstruction.  Use Status Reset whenever the opposing team has buffs that either allow them to pierce your defenses, or if you have bleeds/multiple DoTs that you need to get off of Rescue.  Your natural debuff removal should make it so you don't often have to use this defensively, but rather as an offensive tool to keep your opponent's team off balance.

Phoenix can be used to keep up the wall of protects, usually using Mind Link on herself if you have optimal gear, or the Agent if you are using the gear without Limited Edition items.  She also is your primary form of offense, so don't be afraid if you are not taking a lot of damage to just spam attacks like Telekinesis or Psiblast.  She has Psychic attacks so you can attack people through protects, and while this will not be your primary method of attack sometimes you can use this to finish off a weakened team member.

The Agent's job is much like Rescue's:  Spam buffs, protect and counter, and depending on which attack weapon you use, apply generalized or attack through protects.  If you are using the Blade of the Corruptor route, then both Phoenix and the Agent can ignore protects and hammer on specific targets.

The fun really begins when your first team member triggers Death and Rebirth.  Phoenix Fire refreshes, allowing you to severely wound the opposing team, and is yet another source of debuff and buff cleansing.  Often, Phoenix Fire combined with the solid healing from Rescue and the defensive nature of your team will allow you to get multiple uses of Phoenix Fire and make it frustratingly hard to defeat your team.

Summary

Rescue and Phoenix are one of the better AI-controlled defense teams around.  They often sequence their attacks decently, and have an advantage against teams that do not have sustained burst, like other Rescue teams.  Similarly, this team beats many of the older popular teams like Torch/Strange, making it ideal for low level PVP if you happen to have unlocked Rescue.  It does suffer from being slow to use and hard to focus fire, which means that it is not an ideal aggressive team, but it is definitely one of the better AI teams and worth considering for your defensive lineup.

Ranking:

On Attack:  B

On Defense:  A-

Counters  

Want to beat this team?  The best ways of doing so involve strong Scrappers to assault Phoenix, and stealthy/psychic attacks to ignore Rescue's attempts to defend her.  This does present the problem that their agent is a Bruiser.  Other approaches involve characters that break shields or remove buffs, or exploit shields.  Try team compositions that include either Shatterstar, MK 42 Iron Man, Juggernaut, Thundra, Hercules, Union Jack, and similar.  They often have the tools or the durability to survive the relatively low offense of these teams and either buff themselves enough to break through, or remove Rescue's protects/shields and pound away.  Other approaches that I've used successfully include using Wolverine to keep constant pressure on Phoenix since he has a Stealthy attack with a follow up, along with Tactician Widow to make sure you're going to crit along with her ability to both stun Phoenix and ignore Protects.