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.