Dang, they force you to use Rags for this lightning round, but I need more Rag covers to level it up. Ideas, other then putting out more money? Wife will shoot me if I do. 
Short answer: Don’t do Rags.
Longer answer: progress to rags. Start with a doom or loki, use them to get a mags, then use mags to get rags.
I haven’t drawn a single Rag yet, but I think I just got my first covers (was 4th going into the final min.). I got Dr. Doom from a draw and was able to level him up and score more covers by tanking other rounds and pushing only in the Doom round. Now that I have a high level Doom I tanked for all but Rags and (just confirmed) I scored a red and a green for Top 8. It took me a little more time, but I now know it’s doable!
Get a less primo 3* villian and pump them up and they’ll be your stepping stone to Rags.
Just in case I am missing something, the idea is that you get two covers for Loki or Dr. Doom first? Because isn’t 1 cover the same difference as the default one you get?
Cad
Nice tips. Guess I will focus only on Doom and tank the rest.
Or just go for the diabolic tokens and cross your fingers
Not just two. Build one up to a decent level to help you in the other lightning rounds.
I think I might have cratered my MMR too much. Bagman isn’t getting any bites
So the idea is to try to score high enough on the lightning rounds that you can get multiple covers for one of the other villains, and then use those to win enough to get a few of the rag covers?
Yes.
Tactics in Lightning:
You must think what you want to achieve. Lightning rounds are
Hood , Doom , Loki , Magneto , Ragnarok
If you want to get ragnarok you have to be at Loki and Magneto lightning rounds at the bottom of this tourney (or just Magneto). After this when you start ragnarok tourney you will be fighting with people which lost their last lightning tourney so teoreticaly easy to win against. Thanks to this tactic people with high level characters won’t see your team at the selection oponent screen.
Also play when other timezones are not active. I as European can easly win morning my time, America is sleeping at those hours.
I hope you get your covers easier. Good Luck
Yeah, even with everyone asleep, this magneto round was pretty intense. Looks like soenottelling just barely managed to get in under the wire for top 8
Hahahahahaha!
Spoit, I didn’t beat anyone else in here more than you. And your bag-man-isms netted me quite a few nice spots. And now I see this picture and see my real life friend (doisneau) in your bracket. Holy crap, you are everywhere.
That’s what bag man is there for 
Wow thanks, as a new player that was enlightening. I never understood what “tanking your rating” meant before.
Still getting Doom or Magneto covers isn’t easy to begin with.
It seems to me you need high level *** villains to compete in lightning rounds, since they are buffed so much. Yet the only reliable way to get them is the top10 from lightning rounds themself.
Looks like a vicious circle to me. This game isn’t kind on newcomers, that’s for sure
You don’t need top 8 to start, just go for the diabolical, which should be doable with Thor and boosts
Is that top 100? Almost got there last night. I was #89 with <1m left, got hit and ended up at #101 
Lightning rounds are really brutal!
It doesn’t help that apparently I’m the only one who can’t get Thor covers, since everybody and their mom has one at 85. I find only useless modern hawkeye and ms marvel 
This, so much.
In the Doom/Loki rounds you don’t really want to aim for top 25 – you want top 50. That way you have a chance of pulling a useful cover (Rags/Mags). Aiming for Doom may be of use – if nothing else he’s a pretty big health sink in Diabolical – but his powers really aren’t all that strong (Black does a ton of damage, but getting it started and keeping it around is difficult; and the AI just does not use him well).
Avoid trying in Hood unless you either have a team with no downtime or a team with high enough 3*s to discourage attacks. Until the scoring is fixed in Hood it’s too much of a roulette wheel on the rewards, and you don’t need to spend health packs, boosts, etc. on trying to place there when placing in any other round is so much easier.
26-50, though the heroic for 51-100 would probably help you too