I’ve avoided any truly nasty cascades so far. Besides, Daken and Patch can both regenerate moderate damage. If it works according to plan, Daken converts green to strike tiles; that green feeds Patch. If you can stockpile black, use Moonstone to convert the purple enemy strike tiles from Patch’s green and/or muscle strike tiles back to you, and you’re laying waste to goons left and right. It’s worked for me so far.
Right up until that point, your strategy is exactly what I had been doing, and it was working quite nicely. All it took was the RNG to say “You’ve got one too many health packs, buddy. I think Patch is going down…NOW.” Next think I know, Patch is down.
That’s RNG for you. I suppose I just got overexcited at having some genuinely enjoyable gameplay precede the irritations that always, always follow. And the utter shock of Moonstone serving… a special purpose.
I found the hardest node to be the IW essential - Kishu x 2 + Muscle. Failed numerous times (even using OML or Thoress) before I finally found a team that worked:
/ 
(Flaptain).
Yes, a team of some of the worst 4*s prevailed where OML failed. 
The final IW required node against teen Jean, chuck, and 4* Scott is wiping me out. Ideas?
I have problems even vs those muscles
How do you use Force Bubbles to scan for Caltrops traps? Last time I did this fight, Caltrops was the only thing that hit my team…for 5K damage each.
Have you been using Cap/IM40 combo (and is you IM40 actually got 3 in yellow as per you roster page?). +2y/r +2all and get those shields a flying quick smart.
I somehow managed to score exactly 42,000 points, so I’m basically calling it quits just to see exactly how many people hit the 25CP in my bracket. Sure I’ll miss out on some iso, but such is life. What can I say, I’m curious… With ~16 hrs left, I’m in 208.
I accidentally used the CP on a latest legendary token instead of a classic, but it turned out to be a purple Banner. I have to say, if you’re going to pull a single cover for a 5* (and it’s not yellow Logan) you can’t ask for a more fun one than that 
In the end, I think I finally did it with Sue, Patch, and MoStorm and focusing on black until I could get a Hailstorm going. Used a super whales team-up for the final run to get the CP.
However, thanks for letting me know I’ve got some out of date roster. My Battery Man does have 5 yellow.
I have a champion heavy 2* roster and was leaning pretty heavy on Daken in this one. Which I never mind, he’s efficient - especially if I can leave him in the back for a board or two after a wave level (the shield agents) and let him heal there while the other two whale on em. Plus him and Thor powered up means full color coverage with a slot to spare
I’m a returning player who left when the 2 to 3 star transition was still incredibly hard, and I’m trying to catch up a bit now, and I noticed it has become quite hard to reach the final progression reward now, whereas it used to be relatively easy. I can consistently rank top 50 but I still need a lot of points while the nodes are becoming slightly beyond what I can defeat.
Is this a thing for everybody, or is it because the game is now focused on 3 star land being average, and my roster just being to weak?
Same. Bag woman shouldn’t even still be in the game, let alone a flippin’ essential node.
Today real life plans made getting any Wasp covers realistically impossible in my slice (for the first two subs, doing 6-7 clears well off the optimal schedule left me outside the top 100, so I threw in the towel for Wasp–no cover in the game is worth trading my family time for), so I’m literally sitting at exactly 42k and seeing where that places me. I’m hoping I still get a purple Hawkeye to get closer to rechamping him, but I’m starting to think that I won’t stay top 400. We shall see. I’m more curious to see what percentage of my slice hits progression.
My plan is to never again let this damn game suck me into playing PvE for placement. It’s bad enough having to play for 4-5 hours straight, but now the whole fucking thing is going to come down to how many health packs you have to buy until you get a lucky board 4 times.
To paraphrase South Park:
Phase 1 - Have a LVL 381 Invisible Woman.
Phase 2 - ???
Phase 3 - Command Point!
But seriously, it’s a mean node. I cleared it the 3rd and 4th times with 3-star Deadpool, and Hood. My IW is LVL 381 thanks to her being powered up (normally LVL 276), so her having 29054 health was a huge help. She tanked Yellow and Blue for Hood, while Deadpool tanked black. Take out Prof X first, since those special tiles will get extremely annoying with Cyclops’s cheap abilities. The fourth round, Jean Grey got off both of her abilities, which took out Deadpool and Hood, leaving me with IW vs Jean Grey. Fortunately, by that point, I had enough blue and green to Force Bubble/Crush Jean Grey.
To follow up on what I mentioned earlier, 42k points on the nose was good for 368th place, so a little more than 1/3 of my bracket got progression. Top 10 all had more than double progression, so I’m not sure how that stacked against other brackets.
In any case, as simonsez said, I’m probably not even trying for placement again. Unless I’ve been very unlucky in my brackets, the time commitment is just too high…
It’s very bracket dependant and keeping away from the big grinders. I jumped in with a few hours to go in the second sub, entered as 990 (think it was the second bracket in S1), got the CP and not that much more. Ended up grinding everything to dust in the third sub when I realised I would be able to reach the 25cp progression and came 104th overall. Some brackets, folks must see the big number they join at and just not try (I know I’ve done that plenty before).