Buffs are fun to play with. The opposite, Hindrances, might also be fun to play with.
Hindrances should be free to use, and might add extra ISO / ranking points for a win. Some sample hindrances:
+20 levels to opponent team
-20 levels to team
Take +20% damage
Timer – turn ends in 15 seconds
+3 AP all colors to opponent team
Tile icons based on lowest power.
Insecticide - does 200% more damage to character associated with insects. That’d fix half of the game’s imbalances.
spiders aren’t insects …
I kind of suspected that was going to happen when I wrote that up, but was too lazy to actually look it up. 
I thought you were pre-emptively hating on Ant Man and Wasp. Or that X-Men character with the grubs inside him.
Hindrances (would handicaps be a more accurate term?) would be super cool. If I could gimp my guys in order to earn a few extra bucks I would jump at the chance.
I cool hindrance would be the enemy needs one extra AP to use powers