Hmm, intersting

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
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I gave AI every character and ability at level 550 along with every support at 250 and told it to rank the top 20 and bottom 20 characters (taking in to account team synergy and support use) with a small reason why.

I think it did surprisingly well (with a few caveats), but it was enough I thought the top 5 were at least worth sharing. Fun stuff, I thought the top 2 were nerfed…

| # | Character | Why

| **1** | **Aunt May — Iron May** | Huge passive team buffs require **zero AP**. She makes almost any two strong teammates better and benefits enormously from support-driven teams. |

| **2** | **Polaris — Lorna Dane** | Extremely cheap engine. Special tiles create more special tiles, trigger damage, and interact with a massive number of characters/supports. One of the best synergy characters in the game. |

| **3** | **Okoye — Warrior General** | Team damage amplification scales other characters rather than relying on one expensive nuke. Fantastic with passive/multi-hit damage and AP-generating partners. |

| **4** | **Shang-Chi — Origin** | Cheap powers, board control, huge combo scaling, healing, and excellent self-sufficiency. Starting AP makes his engine get moving much faster. |

| **5** | **Omega Red — Horseman of Pestilence** | Much of his value happens automatically. Persistent passive pressure + survivability means he doesn’t need to win an AP race. |

| **6** | **Deathlok — Michael Collins** | AP generation is much more valuable under this scoring system. He can accelerate teammates and turn good 6–9 AP abilities into near-immediate threats. |

| **7** | **Apocalypse — Classic** | Excellent team amplifier with strong active powers. Starting AP significantly reduces his main weakness: needing time to establish himself. |

| **8** | **Kang — Classic** | AP manipulation and Away are absurdly powerful. Team compositions can specifically accelerate his win condition rather than playing a normal damage race. |

MY BOI!! Now thw world will see you as I do! -WB

| **9** | **Multiple Man — Jamie Madrox** | Extremely strong snowball mechanics, defensive utility, match scaling, special-tile interaction, and an alternate win condition. Doesn’t depend on one giant AP ability. |

| **10** | **Agatha Harkness — Coven Leader** | Strong utility and team-oriented mechanics. Gets better when paired with characters/supports that supply the resources she wants rather than forcing her to do everything herself. |

| **11** | **Ghost Rider 2099 — Zero Cochrane** | His kit is enormous: passive percentage damage, control, healing and team amplification. Some of his versatility is less valuable than cheap dedicated engines. |

| **12** | **Mister Negative — Martin Li** | Very strong special-tile synergy. Characters/supports that seed tiles can let him skip setup and begin exploiting his engine much earlier. |

| **13** | **Chasm — Ben Reilly** | Passive disruption remains tremendously valuable because it costs no AP and interferes with enemy plans before they can establish themselves. |

| **14** | **Black Knight — Dane Whitman** | Strong combination of offense, utility and synergy. Better when teammates/supports compensate for setup requirements. |

| **15** | **Phyla-Vell — Martyr** | Team utility and repeatable effects give her more value than raw damage numbers suggest. Fits well into synergistic teams rather than needing to be the sole carry. |

| **16** | **Clea — Sorcerer Supreme** | Control and utility gain value in optimized teams. Can enable stronger teammates instead of needing every AP point herself. |

| **17** | **Daredevil — King of the Fist** | Cheap/efficient disruption and strong synergy potential matter more under this model than pure level-550 damage numbers. |

| **18** | **The Hunter — Midnight Suns** | Flexible kit and ability to complement many team archetypes. Versatility is much more valuable once supports are included. |

| **19** | **Annihilus — Classic** | Strong mechanics but a little more dependent on circumstances/setup than the characters above him. |

| **20** | **Moonstone — Meteorite** | At 550 her manipulation mechanics can be more valuable than her age suggests when supported by modern teammates. |

NOTES

**Aunt May #1.** Iron May is almost cheating in a ranking like this because her passive gives the entire team +75% match damage, +74% ability damage, and +28% max health without needing AP. A passive that makes two already-good characters substantially better is ridiculous in a three-character game. She doesn’t compete with her teammates for AP, either.

**Deathlok #6.** Assuming 6–9 AP powers are the sweet spot, AP generation becomes one of the most valuable abilities available. Giving another character their good power one or two turns earlier can be stronger than dealing damage yourself.

**Polaris** once supports are considered. Anything that puts special tiles on the board before she really gets going effectively skips part of her setup.

Bottom 20

Here AP efficiency hurts older designs badly. A character whose important power costs 11–14 AP is at a major disadvantage when another character can fire a comparable 6–8 AP ability—or start with enough AP to fire immediately.

| # | Character | Why

Goddess of Death** | Has useful mechanics, so she escapes the absolute bottom, but her kit is slower and more conditional than modern synergy engines. |

| **371** | **Wolfsbane — Rahne Sinclair** | Can do respectable things once established, but requires more effort than newer characters for comparable results. |

| **372** | **War Machine — James Rhodes** | Expensive, fairly straightforward abilities. Limited ability to exploit modern passive/support engines. |

| **373** | **Namor — The Sub-Mariner** | Board manipulation is situational and his return for the AP investment isn’t exceptional anymore. |

| **374** | **Mordo — Master of the Mystic Arts** | Has useful disruption but tends to require more AP/setup than modern control characters. |

| **375** | **Sam Wilson — Captain America** | Special-tile mechanics aren’t inherently bad, but the kit requires too much work compared with newer characters who exploit the same tiles more efficiently. |

| **376** | **Kamala Khan — Ms. Marvel** | Healing is useful, but her older kit doesn’t convert AP into enough immediate momentum at 550. |

| **377** | **Captain Marvel — Ms. Marvel** | Can generate resources under the right conditions but lacks the overwhelming payoff of modern AP engines. |

| **378** | **Kingpin — Wilson Fisk** | Expensive powers and conditional tile mechanics. Too much setup for the payoff. |

| **379** | **Human Torch — Johnny Storm** | Straightforward damage/special tiles without enough modern utility. Competes for AP instead of amplifying teammates. |

| **380** | **Magneto — Marvel NOW!** | Older board manipulation hasn’t aged well against characters that manipulate the board while also producing damage/AP/passive effects. |

| **381** | **Black Widow — Grey Suit** | Some strong effects, but AP costs are brutal. A 19 AP era of MPQ design suffers tremendously under this scoring model. |

| **382** | **Doctor Doom — Classic** | Slow setup and expensive payoff. Modern characters accomplish similar board pressure passively or for much less AP. |

| **383** | **Ragnarok — Dark Avengers** | Even at 550 his abilities are mostly basic damage/tile generation. **9 Green** is merely acceptable and the payoff doesn’t justify building around him. |

| **384** | **Iron Man — Model 40** | AP generation prevents him from being completely awful, but his self-stun/setup mechanics are clumsy compared with newer AP engines like Deathlok. |

| **385** | **Thor — Marvel NOW!** | Expensive conventional powers with insufficient utility. Level scaling fixes his numbers but not his action economy. |

| **386** | **Cyclops — Uncanny X-Men** | Has some AP interaction, but several abilities require too much investment before the team receives the payoff. |

| **387** | **Bullseye — Dark Avengers** | Protect-tile mechanics and situational damage are badly outclassed by modern passive tile engines. |

| **388** | **Juggernaut — Classic** | Very primitive kit. Damage/self-damage and board destruction don’t create enough strategic advantage. |

| **389** | **Thor — Modern** | Probably the clearest example of level scaling not fixing an old kit: expensive, straightforward powers and almost no meaningful synergy.

One important note is **Iron Man Model 40**. I originally put him almost at the absolute bottom, but with an emphasis on AP I wouldn’t leave him there. His kit is dated and awkward, but **AP generation itself is too useful** to call him one of the five worst characters. Put him beside the right expensive character and he can still serve a purpose.

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So it used old Google results and ignored your input.

Fascinating.

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Ah, yes, I should note I told it to ignore ratings and go based explicitly off abilities and synergy. Whether it cheated, who can say.

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Must be why I never see Juggernaut Classic in PvP. :slight_smile:

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Thats a good point! I didnt tell it about god boost..

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There are 406 characters?

Even ignoring the 6s and limiteds you’d be at 395.

Where da rest?

Also….I actually still like 2-5 Ms Marvel a bit. Her black aoe hits hard. There is no way she’s worse than the natural 5* Carol (useless edition). The minor Winfinite enabling isn’t enough to make up for the kit costs.

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It doesnot include 6 stars (I think we all know how that plays out). It also doesnt have Banshee and Boomer, though part of my was really hoping to see Scorpion at the bottom.

I actually had some good math for how 4 stars convert to 5 stars, but Boomer breaks the mold and you can see they are changing how 4stars sit closer to 5s. We’ll see…

I personally was very disappointed in Marvel at 5… she was one of my few ascension regrets. Shes not the worst, but not worth choosing over others (for me).

Either way, I just thought it was interesting. Especially with the way it pulled the old top tier characters to the top. I would actually say Okoye and Apoc need a buff, in this economy!

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This why you could tell it just pulled the Google results. Most common word associations. It’s a large language model. It predicts the most common expected words associated with MPQ and this line of questions. That’s why it favors longtime characters like Okoye and Polaris.

Also it put absolute stinkers like Black Knight and Hunter at the t20 and Sam5, one of the most future nerf targeted, at the very bottom..

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For sure for sure, but aren’t those 2 things contradicting? Hard to imagine it not catching Frankie, iHulk and Sammernaut based off of that data.

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I dunno what it’s really doing but Chasm’s big strength is his opening stun. Yeah he goes great with Samjuggs who don’t really need ap but the writeup focuses on ap suppression.

I am curious if it mostly scraped articles the devs or Marvel posted and weighted based on description writeups over player feedback which would be a lot to take in correctly since many people get stuff wrong.

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Here’s my AI answers. Wasted some water for that:

There is no authoritative, community‑accepted “top 10 and bottom 10” list for Marvel Puzzle Quest (MPQ) as of August 2026, and the search results confirm that no source provides a ranked top/bottom list. The only 2026 MPQ‑specific data available are tier lists from 2023, 3‑star rankings from May 2026, and character rebalance notes from July 2026 — none of which offer a full top/bottom ranking.

So the best we can do is infer a plausible “top 10” and “bottom 10” based on the latest available tier information, rebalance notes, and community consensus trends — clearly marked as inferred, not sourced rankings.

:trophy: Top 10 Characters (Inferred, August 2026)

These are characters consistently appearing in S‑tier lists or recognized as high‑impact, based on the most recent available tier data.

  1. Phoenix — Listed as S‑tier; extremely strong burst and revive potential.

  2. Wolverine — S‑tier; high damage and sustain.

  3. Green Goblin — S‑tier; strong board control.

  4. Silver Surfer — S‑tier; powerful AP generation and damage.

  5. Iron Man — S‑tier; versatile and high damage.

  6. Natasha Romanoff — S‑tier; strong utility.

  7. The Hulk — S‑tier; tanky with strong burst.

  8. Doctor Strange — S‑tier; passive punish mechanics.

  9. Black Bolt — S‑tier; heavy damage scaling.

  10. Captain America — S‑tier; strong control and defense.

:rock: Bottom 10 Characters (Inferred, August 2026)

These are characters explicitly mentioned as needing buffs, being rebalanced upward, or historically considered weak.

  1. Aunt May (Iron May) — Devs explicitly lowered her power; historically weak.

  2. Hawkeye (Classic, 1‑Star) — Rebalanced due to being overtuned at low star levels; still bottom‑tier.

  3. Black Widow (1‑Star) — Multiple nerfs; low impact.

  4. Black Widow (Aggressive Recon) — AP cost reductions indicate prior weakness.

  5. Widow’s Sting Black Widow — Reduced stun power; weak control.

  6. Repulsor Blast Iron Man (low‑star) — Cost reductions imply underperformance.

  7. Early‑game 1‑Star Black Widow variants — All noted as needing modernization.

  8. Other early 1‑Star characters — Dev notes indicate broad weakness.

  9. Underpowered 3‑Star characters pre‑rebalance — Aunt May is the only named example, but dev notes imply more.

  10. Any pre‑rebalance low‑star characters — The July 2026 rebalance batch targeted weak characters.

(So yeah, it got nothing at all correct)

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LOL it just assembled the bottom 10 by reading everyone’s nerf whining on the forum.

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Skynet does April Fools?

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I feel like there’s a sizable difference between reading every single ability with every single abilities numbers at the same level, compared to just asking willy nilly, but I see my topic has offended people, so I will it die.

I did however ask to confirm on my way out:

  1. The character data you had provided — health, match damage, ability descriptions, AP costs, passives, affiliations, etc., normalized to level 550.
  2. My own MPQ/game-mechanics reasoning to judge things that aren’t directly represented by a single number: AP efficiency, board control, passive value, how abilities interact, likely team synergy, usefulness of stun/Away, special-tile engines, and so on.

I did not search the web, use community tier lists, Reddit, MPQ forums, or an outside character database for that ranking. :man_shrugging:

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I’m not offended by it, and I’m not sure the other were either. It did seem to make some odd choices, though. I won’t go line by line, but I noticed 1​:star: Juggernaut was extremely low – I guess it doesn’t understand trading health for speed?

I’m a little confused about the bottom tier, too. We should really have no problem ranking the worst characters, but it’s very odd that 5​:star: Black Widow isn’t there, or some of the other truly terrible 5​:star:. 3​:star: Thor looks like a murderer next to Widow! His stuff is expensive but the damage is respectable and the powers do something, unlike her kit (which is expensive and also incredibly weak).

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i looked up “who is considered the top marvel puzzle quest player ever” on google and miss ai said jonny. don’t believe the hype. it’s reference was a comment from daiches on reddit lol.

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Okoye being three is more ai insanity lol

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It must be true, because the source is good. After all:

In the Marvel Puzzle Quest community, Daiches is known as a high‑level veteran player, a long‑time competitive alliance member, and one of the more recognizable names among MPQ’s top‑end players. He isn’t a developer or official figure — MPQ has no formal “celebrity players” — but within the community, Daiches is absolutely considered one of the notable, respected, and skilled players.

The non‑obvious insight

Daiches is respected inside the elite circle, not outside it.
He’s the kind of player other top players talk about — not the kind casual players recognize. In MPQ terms, that’s arguably the highest form of respect.

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speaking of things you say, “Sure, Jan” to…

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