Hello, and welcome! I’ve played this game since the beginning and have restarted my roster from scratch, twice. I was surprised to find that I could progress faster than most players and essentially “catch up”. So I’m simply sharing my advice and tips for this interesting game. This guide is organized into categories, so you do not need to read this in order. You can jump around and read what you need to know. One thing I need to point out is that this game is constantly changing.
Acronyms / Abbreviations / Terms:
HP = Hero Points
CP = Command Points
XP = Experience Points
HT = Heroic Token
LT = Legendary Token
RISO = Red ISO
PVE = Story Events
PVP = Versus Events
SCL = Shield Clearance Level
AOE = Area of Effect Damage, meaning it hits the enemy team
CD tile = Countdown Tile
Farm = Characters that are champed /ascended to get rewards but not used
MMR = Match Making Algorithm which gives you similar power teams to fight in PVP
Cascade = the subsequent matches that can happen after your initial color match
Winfinite = having an endless turn using abilities that feed each other (self-sustaining)
Nerf = reducing a character’s effectiveness
MPQ Principles:
- Spend your HP on mostly roster slots to build your reward farm
- Spend your ISO on your main fighters first then on your farms second
- Spend your CP on Legendary stores only, not on directly buying covers
- Understand PVP mechanics & gameplay, then choose what works for you
- Join a good alliance and move to better alliances as your performance improves
- Shard build characters / supports that help you to fight tougher battles or win faster
- Play in the highest SCL you can handle in order to maximize your rewards.
- Hoarding tokens and resources is not advised in the beginning
- Timing is very critical to this game, so develop a routine you can live with
- Spending money can increase your progression speed, but it takes a lot of money
- Champ and/or Ascend characters for rewards and greater strength
Shield Clearance Level Difficulty:
SCL 6 - Need 3* Champs
SCL 7 - Need Top 3s or Mid-Level 4s
SCL 8 - Need 4* Champs
SCL 9 - Need Top 4s or Mid-Level 5s
SCL 10 - Need 5* Champs
Top Characters:
1* - Spiderman, Juggernaut, Yelena, Widow
2* - Nightcrawler, Electro, Headpool, Wolverine, Widow, Ares, Marvel
3* - Aunt May, Namor, Strange, Fist, Iron Man 40, Kamala, Thanos, Hawkguy
4* - Juggernaut, Polaris, Rocket & Groot, Medusa, Chavez, Karnak, Valkyrie, Morbius, Moonstone, Multiple Man, Deathlok, Coulson, M’Baku
5* - Nova, Sam Wilson, Chasm, Mighty Thor, Shang, Beta Ray Bill, Kitty, Prof X, Onslaught, Omega Red, Agatha, Magik, Aunt May Goldie, Emma, Kang
Beginning Campaign:
This should be completed in the first week of play. It rewards HP & 2-star covers in addition to ISO. This extra effort in the beginning is worth it.
General Progression Advice:
The way to progress is by improving your main fighting teams, either pick-2 or pick-3 teams in PVE and PVP. So, your efforts should be focused on improving those teams or building new ones, but it’s also essential to build up your reward farms. If your main teams are leveled up as high as possible, then spend your HP and ISO building the farms. This means that you would start champing 3s before your 2s are finished, and start champing 4s before your 3s are finished, etc. Having 1 great team is better than having 5 average ones. And these reward farms will produce more and more as time goes on, exceeding your expectations.
Favorites / Shards:
These are fractions of a cover and very precious! You can select the best characters in tiers 3, 4 and 5, and shard build them to completion. But do this 1 character at a time per tier. This means that you need to research the top characters in order to know what you want to chase. There’s no right answer for everyone on this, it depends on how long it will take you to build a new character and what characters you already have. I would have short, medium and long term plans to improve my teams. This also applies to Supports, which are just as good as characters. Shards can also be used to continue leveling up and ascending a character. Your favorites (for shards) should represent your character goals in the game.
Placement & Progression Rewards:
Most events have both placement & progression rewards. It is wise to get all the progression rewards because it’s usually easy, but placement rewards, such as top 10, is very hard and probably not worth the effort given the small differences between the reward brackets. Those small differences do add up over time, but the time commitment to get them is substantial.
Roster Slots:
This is the biggest constraint in the game, which encourages players to spend real money on HP. That’s your choice, but don’t feel bad for selling covers because you don’t have the space. The best strategy here is to simply roster the best characters and spend your naturally earned HP on more slots every week. Eventually, you’ll roster everyone, but I would focus slots on new characters too because you’ll get the most covers for them. Ascending characters is very taxing on roster slots as you will need many duplicates of a single character at certain times.
Ascending Characters:
This allows you to level up your characters from tier to tier until they reach the 5-star level and eventually max out at 550. This is a very long process, taking years, but the purpose is getting tons of great champ rewards and reaching the top level of play (and continuing to use your favorite lower level guys). And because everyone can ascend to be 5-stars, the team combinations and strategies are endless. That’s the good part, the bad part is the ton of time, roster slots and ISO required to do this. There’s also a cover conversion rate with ascended characters that really slows down the leveling up. I’ll break this down by tier:
Ascending 1-Stars:
These 8 characters move the fastest by design and are capable of reaching 550 in less than a year. That means that new players can enter the highest PVP MMR with only ascended 1-Stars. This sounds like a slaughter, but because 1-Stars are frequently boosted, they can legitimately fight those battles. Common Ascended 1-Star Teams include Spiderman, Juggernaut or Yelena and can be paired with an ascended 3-Star Aunt May or Namor to deal very high damage quickly. AP Boost Supports are added to this combo for first turn kills.
Ascending 2-Stars:
These characters move the slowest in ascension because you cannot favorite them. This tier is still being expanded too, so the cover dilution will only get worse over time. So, it can take 2.5 yrs ascending a native 2-Star to level 450, and then another 1.5 yrs to reach 550. But if you spend the HP to exchange 2-star covers, you could fast track 1 of them. There are some new 2-Stars that would be great at the 5-Star level, such as Headpool, Nightcrawler & Electro. But character powers may change after ascension to keep the game balanced, so check their stats before making plans.
Ascending 3-Stars:
Technically, these characters ascend the slowest because of the cover acquisition rate and cover dilution, but you can favorite 1 of them for shards to fast track their ascension, such as Aunt May or Namor. With cover exchanges, they can move even faster (months not years), which I would suggest given how awesome they both are. These are the best 3-stars as they can double or triple the damage of any 5-star. But a warning on Aunt May, her damage buff of 200% at the 4-star level drops back down to 100% at the 5-star level.
Ascending 4-Stars:
This is what I call the 4-star crawl - 2s, 3s and 4s can spend years at this tier! If they’re not favorited or have cover exchanges, they would probably move at 1 level per week. Ascending the 3-Star Lightning Round characters is wise because they get a 50% level boost during the event. This means that a level 300 Magneto would become a 450, and a level 550 Magneto would become a monstrous 799! There are many native 4-Stars that destroy at the 5-star level (like Juggernaut and M’Baku), but some have nerfed abilities instead, like Moonstone. So look before leaping into the 5-star tier.
Ascension Time, Rewards & Roster Slots:
This is a little complicated and comes down to personal preference, but here’s my opinion. Ascending characters can take years to do and if you choose to only ascend with 2 max champ level characters, it takes even longer. On top of the time problem, you have the immense amount of roster slots needed to keep a dupe of every character at every level! As for rewards, 2-star champ rewards are almost nothing, 3-star rewards have some LTs and CP, but mostly at the upper levels, and 4-star rewards are a steadily increasing stream where they get really good after level 330. So, for the sake of time and slots, I recommend to ascend with Max + Min at tiers 2 and 3. Then watch them crawl at the 4-star level while getting those great rewards, and eventually ascending with a 370 + 370 … unless you would regularly use them for fighting, so in that case, ascend early.
Supports:
In terms of game mechanics and strategy, supports are like extra characters with passive powers that can be brought into a battle. Just like forming killer combos between characters, you can form killer combos between characters and supports. Essentially a team is composed of 6 parts, 3 characters and 3 supports, and those supports can be just as important as the characters you’re fighting. You probably already know the difficulty of leveling up supports, so my advice is to focus on 1 at a time - meaning, favorite 1 of them and pour your precious Red ISO into it. The best way to get favorite support shards is the Boss event at the end of each season. Plus, the puzzle gauntlet is another way to get some support tokens, which also give favorite support shards. Between these 2 end of season events, you can get about 800 favorite shards.
If you have a maxed out support (level 5) and get that support again through a token, those shards will be converted to favorite shards instead. So, the more level 5 supports you have, the more conversions to favorite shards you can get, which leads to more level 5 supports. A self-reinforcing cycle that accelerates your acquisition of level 5 supports. Another good thing about supports is that you can pass them around endlessly between your teams. The real question here is, what supports are the best and what combos can you make? The combos are probably endless, but here’s the ones I’ve seen: (PLEASE NOTE: the top 4 supports are currently being rebalanced)…
Fantasticar (Heros): it boosts match damage, causes cascades and reduces enemy ability damage; but those effects are temporary. Nevertheless, it’s a powerful tool when attached to a high match damage Hero (i.e. 5-Stars like Colossus or an ascended M’Baku). Add in 3-Star Namor and May and you have a killer team that even new players can make. Be cautious when fighting a team that uses this, bad luck can wipe you out!
Thanos Copter (Villains): it primarily causes cascades (at level 5) and gives boosted match damage for them, plus the team gains increased ability damage. The caveat is the Cosmic Cube repeater tile that when matched / destroyed, sends that character airborne for 1 turn. This effect can mess up winfinite combos and it’s possible for the enemy team to destroy the tile and remove it’s benefits from you. It’s particularly nasty when attached to an ascended 4-Star Juggernaut or a 5-Star Mephisto. Add in 5-Star Sam Wilson, and you have one of the top teams around.
Leapfrog (Anyone): this is basically “nuke protection” for all your characters. It will reduce the damage from the enemy hit and give them invisibility as well. It’s normally attached to the required character in PVP and is generally seen as annoying to fight against. AOE damage can bypass invisibility, but a level 5 Leapfrog can send the character away for 1 turn. This support is essential when fighting certain teams in PVP that can kill a character on their 1st turn. Fighting against it is frustrating, especially if you can’t get rid of the invisibility tile or don’t have AOE / Random damage.
Eros Arrow (Anyone): this is another defensive support where it “Nerfs” a random enemy while protecting your ally in front. That’s its main purpose, but it does a few other things with the “Lovestruck” Ally and Enemy which involve AP gain/drain, health bursts, damage and a 1-turn stun. I find this support very useful when fighting a team with one big guy and 2 smaller support characters. I quickly take down the 2 small support characters, then the “random” enemy will be the 1 big guy left, which then becomes nerfed (no longer dangerous). If you’re lucky, the random enemy will be the big guy from the start. Fighting against this is annoying, but not as bad as Leapfrog.
Omnipotence City (Godlike): this is a powerful support that grants extra AP, extra damage, plus strong strike and protect tiles. The limitation is being attached to Godlike characters, but there’s a good amount of Godlike top tier characters in the game. With an all Godlike team, there’s a significant synergy perk of increased health and ability damage. Fighting against this is not a big problem, unless their team gets lots of cascades.
Symbiote Goo (Anyone): this significantly increases match and ability damage for the supported character, but only in the color which they have the most AP for. This can exploit a single ability or match damage if used wisely. Fighting against this support is usually not a concern though.
Implanted Bomb (Villains): this also greatly increases the supported character’s match and ability damage, plus it provides significant health bursts on match 4+. This is basically a better version of Symbiote Goo, but the caveat is that the supported character must make a match or use a power every 3 turns or they die. So watch out for stuns! Fighting against this support hurts a little.
Refreshment Cart (Anyone): this support is ideal for winfinite characters because it generates 1 AP in their strongest color whenever anyone on your team fires a power or makes a match-5 (at level 5). And it doesn’t need to be attached to the character that can go winfinite; just attach it to any character where you want AP in their strongest color. It’s basically an AP engine with some added perks of reducing enemy stuns, creating SAPS, dealing damage and reducing CD and Repeater tiles to 0. It works particularly well on 1-Star Hawkeye or Juggernaut, 2-Star Electro, 3-Star Namor, 4-Star Moonstone or Shang Chi. Fighting against it is not a problem though.
Krakoa (Mutants): the main purpose of this support is to get Red, Black or Blue AP because those color supports are limited. Red only comes from Arc Reactor (Stark Tech) and Proxima Midnight (Villains). Black only comes from Tinkerer (Villains) and Milano (Gaurdians). Blue AP supports do not exist. A popular usage of Krakoa is on 3-Namor to start with Black AP or used on Polaris to start with Blue AP. Please note: if there are multiple mutants on your team, the AP gain is random among them.
Chimichanga (Anyone): the main purpose of this support is to get extra Red & Purple AP on Red & Purple matches. An ideal support for Shang-Chi or 1a5-Hawkeye or any Red & Purple user, like 5*Bucky.
Power Stone (Anyone): the main purpose of this is to fire a random power at no cost. The odds are low, but it can happen and may ruin a match for you.
Soul Stone (Anyone): the main purpose of this is to get 5 AP in your strongest color when downing an enemy. Works great on characters with cheap strong attacks, like 1a5-Spidey’s Red Nuke.
AP Supports: There are many AP supports out there, but the ones that grant 6 AP at start are the most desirable. There are many ways to start with lots of Green, Yellow and Purple. This could setup first turn winfinites or stuns or criticals or AOEs. There are limited supports to get Red, Black and Blue though. Red & Black attacks tend to hit the hardest and Blue’s best use are stuns. With these AP Supports, plus AP boosts, the possibilities are endless for first turn wins (or at least taking down the biggest threat). This allows very fast play of PVE nodes and can be a threat in PVP too. You may not want to play a team that’s going to hit you hard on their first turn. There’s too many combinations to list, but know what these supports do.
Spending HP:
In the beginning, only spend HP on roster slots and 1 shield per PVP. Eventually, you’ll have excess HP to spend on either more shields, good vaults or good Lightning deals. But ascending characters requires a lot of roster slots, so it may be a long time before you have any HP to spare. But don’t underestimate those champ & ascension farms - the rewards are worth it! If you are in a position of excess HP, you could spend some of it exchanging covers in order to ascend / level up someone quickly. It’s generally a bad idea to use HP on token stores.
Spending ISO:
The general advice on ISO is to champ your fighters first and then farms second. If champing someone will improve your daily play, then do that instead of building up the farms more. But if another champ won’t change your daily teams, then champ whoever will be most beneficial for rewards. But don’t get into the mindset that you have to champ everyone in a tier before starting the next tier. That mentality will slow you down. Spreading your ISO out among all tiers isn’t a bad idea, but prioritize your fighters first. Spending a little ISO on AP boosts is OK as long as the rewards outweigh the cost. The “Skip Tax” in PVP battles is annoying, but the cost is so low that it’s worth finding easier teams to fight.
Spending RISO:
Just like ISO, spend this leveling up your best and most used supports. Having 3 great supports is better than having 10 average ones. 1 great support can be the difference between winning and losing Crash of the Titans with a weak 4-star. Because RISO is much harder to get, I would focus on just 1 support at a time.
Spending CP:
In the beginning, it’s very useful to get a 5* character, even at low levels. This will help speed up your progression, so it’s best to spend your CP on the Latest Legendary store since that’s your best chance of covering a 5*. Milestones give you more 5* shards to better cover the best one you have, which should lead to your first 5* champ. Hoarding in the beginning is not advisable, but once you have a good 5* fighting team, then hoarding could be wise. If a great 5* comes along in Latest or another special store, then spend your CP to max cover them. If you don’t have all Classic 5s rostered, then you could open Classics to get them and finish covering the 4 tier as well. But remember that 4* champ rewards give 5* covers and shards, so you could acquire classic 5s that way. At the top level of play, you hoard CP in order to add champ levels to the best 5s from a special store. Do not spend CP directly buying character powers.
Legendary Tokens:
These are acquired in champ rewards mostly, but you can also get them from top placement rewards, Boss Events, Introducing events, DDQ Crash of the Titans, Vaults, VIP membership and other special offers. These tokens are usually for the Latest Legendary store and you should acquire enough of them to get every new 5* rostered. Depending on your token acquisition rate, you may be able to max cover every new 5* without spending any CP on Latest Legends. This high level of LT acquisition comes from champ / ascension farms and playing SCL 10. Some players choose to hoard their LTs and CP for a new meta breaking 5-star. This is actually a good idea as long as you still cover and champ everyone else. A few great characters is better than a hundred mediocre ones.
Getting to Level 550:
The best way to do this is in steps instead of hoarding LTs and CP forever. If you already have strong 5-Star teams, but they’re “baby champs” (below level 475), then focus on building up your LT and CP production rates, which is a simple matter of building up your farms at all levels. This includes ascending all characters to get better rewards. You should acquire enough LTs to champ all new 5-Stars without using CP on Latest, which means that you can use CP on Special Legendary Stores to add levels to your best 5-Stars. In addition to this, you can use your excess HP on Special Vaults to get those 5-star covers directly. Of course, you can favorite a character and put them on the “fast track” to 550. Over time, your best fighters will grow and grow until they hit 550. It can be done, it just takes some dedication.
Now what about ascended characters reaching 550? This will happen very fast with 1-Stars, which will affect your MMR. If you don’t like that change, you can always sell them and ascend them again, but certain boosted 550 1-Stars are formidable. But who will win the race to 550 between the other tiers? 2-Stars will be the slowest because you can’t favorite them, only exchange their covers. There are a chosen few 3-Stars that would kill at 550, but the real race is between the 4s and 5s and I’m not sure who would get there first.
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Versus (PVP): The team you climb with is just as important as the team you defend with. Climbing fast is helpful, but discouraging attacks is just as helpful. The strongest team you win with will be the team that other players fight, unless it’s a retaliation. Progression rewards are based on points or number of wins. So if you can’t hit 1200 points, you could always grind out 50 wins (you could play in the beginning of the event and beat seed teams). Remember that the higher you climb the more likely you will get attacked. I try to pick high point battles (38+) to discourage players from retaliating for lesser points. When considering retaliations, it’s only profitable to attack for more points than you lost. You also need to know when to skip; you can’t win every battle. Shields are essential to getting good placement, but I limit their use in the beginning since they cost precious HP. Some players climb early and shield early because it’s easier (but costs more HP). Climbing late is risky as most high point players are shielded, plus it makes you a target as well. Battle chat rooms can certainly help for climbing higher, but that takes more time for coordination.
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Shield Simulator: You could treat this event as a testing ground for new teams. Just remember to play your last battle with a team that would discourage attacks. However you play it, hit 2000 points or 50 wins, then shield before it ends. For most players, the real game in MPQ lies in the required character PVP events, not the Simulator, so I wouldn’t focus too much effort on improving your Simulator teams.
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Story (PVE): This is the daily grind for rewards, so some players go down to lower SCLs to minimize their grind time. There are many methods people use here, but you basically want to clear each node until the timer starts, then wait as long as possible for points to replenish and clear the nodes again until all points are gone (just before the event ends). The order and timing of clearing nodes is the tricky part, but take into account the points & time it takes to clear a node when determining the best order. Unlike PVP, scoring well here requires a dedicated block of time everyday. Some of the best characters here are 3*/5Thanos, Okoye, IHulk, Omega Red, Adam Warlock, 4Grocket, Kitty, Polaris, 4Juggs, 5Thor, Shang, Morbius, Chavez, 4Doc Ock, Scorpion, 4Star Lord. The competition here is intense, where a small mistake can cost you in rank. Playing PVE to full progression rewards (and node rewards) is essential because these rewards outweigh PVP rewards.
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Deadpool’s Daily Quest (DDQ): this should always be completed because the rewards are great and the effort is small. Because of DDQ, you need to maintain a decently leveled 1* character. The required character nodes reward you for rostering and champing everyone. With a great support, any 4* can beat Crash of the Titans. You can also use boosts and team ups to make these battles go faster.
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Alliances: at this point you should be a part of a good active alliance. Most importantly, you get alliance rewards, plus the occasional CP from purchases. A good alliance has active players and gets decent placement rewards. A great alliance gets better placement rewards and full progression rewards in Boss events. Some alliances are a family of alliances, and you’re placed in them depending on your performance.
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VIP Membership: if you don’t mind spending a little each month, VIP membership is good for getting extra rewards, most notably it gives 2 LT, 1 CT & 20 CP per month and you get PVE bonus rewards from spending in general. Technically, your characters heal faster, but I don’t think I’ve noticed. It’s definitely good to spend the bare minimum per month (Lightning Deals) just to get the Bonus Rewards.
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Lightning Rounds: These are weekly 48 hr periods of 90 min PVP events with required 3* characters. They are only good for gaining extra ISO, Heroic tokens and trying out new teams. Because these additional events may be too much of a time commitment, you could either play for 5 min in the very beginning to beat the seed teams and reach 250+ points OR play in the last 20 minutes to get top 50 or better placement rewards. I have found that placement is much harder when I join early but easier when I join late. It only takes 300 points to get decent placement here.
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Puzzle Gauntlet: This is a monthly PVE event that rewards support tokens and RISO. Each node has a different “puzzle” or win condition to meet. This is another reason to roster, champ and be familiar with every character. 2 of the nodes limit who you can use and it may seem impossible to beat, but with the right supports and team ups, it can be done. Don’t be afraid to ask your alliance for specific characters in order to get those team ups. This event is one of the few ways to get support tokens.
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The Off Season: This is the week between the season events that typically has unusual PVPs with less competition. You don’t need to worry about Shield Simulator or your season score. To avoid MPQ burnout, it’s a good idea to relax during the “off season” and not worry about placement rankings.