#4-8: heavy hitters
Five of the strongest-hitting characters in the game slot in here. Any of them would be viable candidates to build a roster around, and a few of them work well together too.
8. Iron Man (Model 40)
IM40 is probably the best example of the 3* design philosophy: characters that are quite weak with one or two covers, but when fully leveled up, really come into their own. Both his red and blue powers are incredible AP sinks, though they also do quite a bit of damage; as such they’re best thought of as game-enders rather than powers you rely on throughout the match as a primary source of damage.
However, both become much stronger once he gets his yellow, which is his best power; with it, he can much more easily get to the 13 and 20 AP requirements that otherwise might take the whole game. His yellow also produces the best colors in the game (red, blue) at the lowest levels. That plus his huge health pool and strong tile damage make him a good support character for many teams.
You do have to be a bit tactical about Recharge — to get maximum use out of it, you want to try and match all the available yellows so that you can protect all 3 countdowns. Also, if you’re going to cast multiple Recharges, make sure you do it all at once! Otherwise, he’ll stun himself after the first set, and the second set’s countdowns will freeze until he comes out of the stun, effectively making it a four-turn countdown. Same goes for using him with Hood’s Intimidation, which you need to have at level 3 to use for one Recharge and level 5 for two or more.
Model 40 plays best with someone else on the team who can convert the surge of reds (and blues and greens, if you choose to go that route) into instant damage, because otherwise it takes too long (cast Recharge, wait two turns for the countdown, wait another two turns for the stun, cast Unibeam). It helps if this power is relatively cheap, so that you’re not spending multiple turns taking damage before you can get off any powers. When facing Model 40, he’s generally safe to ignore until the end because his powers are so expensive, but you do want to make sure he doesn’t sneak in a whole bunch of red when you’re not looking. It’s also a good idea to check his yellow, in case he’s only at 1, to make sure you don’t get ambushed by a Recharge that turns into four Thunderclaps.
Best build: 5/5/2; there are too many other good options for producing green, and getting yellow off at 8 (or double yellow at 16) is way easier than 10. 5/5/1 might be even better, especially on defense where it’s harder to prevent, since red is usually the color you want anyway. When’s that respec option coming, again?
7. Doctor Doom
Doctor Doom is a bit of a one-dimensional character. But that one dimension is pretty powerful; at max level you’re looking at 185 damage per attack tile, or over 1k damage per turn. At 12 AP, this is a pretty expensive power, but his blue makes it a bit easier to get off (and possibly getting some criticals or 4-ways in the process).
One thing to note here is that Doom creates his attack tiles on red, and because it takes a while to get his black charged, it’s not terribly difficult to blunt his power significantly by using Wolverine or Daken to eat up all the available red tiles. If you’re going that route, make sure to leave one open; if there aren’t any tiles available, he won’t cast it, which opens the door for a board-clearing move to give him several more red, whereas if there’s just one tile, he’ll cast it, wasting the 12 AP and giving you just one attack tile to deal with.
A fun pairing for Doctor Doom is grey Magneto: use two boosts to get 6 blue and 6 purple; match one purple and cast Polarity Shift, making one blue match right away and putting the others in places where they’ll match blacks. Then cast Doom’s blue — this should get you enough for two black casts. Then sit back and cackle as your demons rip through the opposing team, 1.5k a turn.
Best build: 5/5.
6. Black Widow (grey suit)
Like Model 40, grey Widow has a couple of hideously expensive powers, but paired with one that helps get there faster. Her green is the strongest area damage in the game, doing over 3k damage at max level and taking out a huge chunk of the board, and is the main reason she ranks so highly — get one of these off and you’re halfway to victory; get two off and that’s all she wrote. Her red is comparatively boring, although allowing you to pick the tiles makes it occasionally useful in a pinch for dealing with a pesky PvE countdown tile.
The purple isn’t quite as flashy as the green — there’s no giant reticle of destruction, no massive damage — but it’s every bit as powerful. You can almost always generate at least two critical tiles and usually a whole bunch of cascades; in the aftermath it’s pretty common to have all of your non-purple powers full charged and ready to unleash.
Note that while making a T or an L will create a critical, making an H doesn’t create any, and won’t match the tile in the middle. This is especially important on boards that have a good bit of green to start with — you don’t want to accidentally connect two sets of green, because then you’ll only get one critical instead of two.
About the only strike against her is that she’s just about useless on defense. She has 5k health, which isn’t that low, but the AI places her green tiles randomly, so it’s usually safe to leave her for last, watching her flail at your team with just tile damage, never reaching 19 green AP.
Best build: 5/3/5; the red is just too situational. Just for kicks, it’s fun to imagine what she’d look like if the red did generate AP. Yikes.
5. Wolverine (yellow)
When Punisher was released, some were quick to pronounce Wolverine outclassed. Sure, at first glance, Punisher creates 3 114 strike tiles for 8 AP, whereas Wolverine creates 3 89 strike tiles for 9 AP, which seems close but clearly worse. But when you consider that Punisher’s second cast is likely to destroy at least one of his own strike tiles, and that with boosts Wolverine can have 4 tiles on turn 1, whereas Punisher only has 3 on turn 2, and that it’s not uncommon for Wolverine to get off late-game casts that create 4-5, it’s clear that Wolverine is still the king of strike tiles.
If he had no other powers than Feral Claws, he’d still merit a top 10 ranking. His yellow is pretty strong at high levels too, as it wipes away most match damage, leaving Wolverine vulnerable only to abilities, and his red does a considerable amount of damage. Due to his green relying on red, it’s best to think of his red as a game-ender or for emergency use if an enemy has a massive power charged.
The one knock on Wolverine is that he’s much, much worse on defense than he is on offense. The AI doesn’t know to save up red, so he’s usually limited to creating one or at most 2 strike tiles, and players are smart enough to prioritize matching those strike tiles, so it’s rare to be getting hit with more than 4 or 5 (whereas it’s easy to have 8-10 strike tiles hitting the AI). Also, the AI doesn’t have the luxury of being able to put Wolverine out front to absorb match damage and heal it back up.
Strike tiles play quite well with just about everyone, but he’s especially effective with attack tiles, area damage, and Espionage. He also likes cheap, low-damage abilities (like his own Feral Claws), because with strike tiles, they become cheap, high-damage abilities (yum).
Wolverine doesn’t play nicely with Daken, because Daken tends to take up the red tiles with inferior damage strike tiles, leaving fewer for Wolverine, and he also doesn’t play as well with characters that have board-clearing moves, since they’ll often wipe out his strike tiles.
Best build: 5/3/5 is the standard, but really it’s just important to get 5 green. 5/4/4 isn’t that much different, and 5/5/3 is actually a nastier build to face on defense, and perhaps a bit quicker on offense as well. That is, if you’re not pairing him with…
4. Thor
Everyone’s favorite god, Thor is the gold standard for tanks as his covers are readily available in the Prologue and therefore common among mid-level teams. He’s the very definition of brute force: high health, a cheap red that does a considerable amount of damage, a more expensive but not excessive yellow that does massive damage, and a green that hits for area damage.
Thor would be a solid character if his powers only did damage; his high ranking is based on the fact that they also chain into each other. Two casts of red are often enough to get a cast of yellow, which then gives green, which plays well with tons of characters, including both Storms, who can use it to clear the board, get red AP, and start the chain all over again.
It’s usually best to save up the red for at least two or more casts in a row, unless the opponent has just cast it, because you’re much more likely to have the yellows chain and/or set up 5-matches for extra turns. As such, Thor plays well with Wolverine, because he’s got a cheap-ish direct-damage power that plays well with strike tiles; he likes to save up red; and he generates green tiles. As mentioned, he also plays well with both Storms (which is thematically cool, thunder and lightning), and he’s a pretty solid fit on just about any team.
When facing Thor, the key is to deny him red; you can do this either by matching it yourself or stealing it. With boosts or a sufficiently high level team, even his 5k hp can be easily chopped down by the time he gets 6 red (and in many cases your team should be able to take one hit, as long as it doesn’t cascade into yellow). For many mid-level teams, taking him down or stunning him means you just have to mop up the rest.
Best build: 5/5/3; red starts the chain, so you want it as cheap as possible; yellow is the next link, so you also want it as cheap as possible. You’ll almost never cast green — there’s always someone with a better green available.
