I’m a 4*, predominantly SCL 8 player who was never before tried SCL 9. I know the progression prizes are better, and I’ve heard placement prizes are also more generous and easier to attain, but with exactly zero champed, fully covered, or even moderately leveled 5*s on my roster, I assumed it was out of my league.
But I do have at least 1 cover for every 5* (except GEDoom), and FOMO finally kicked in when I saw the boosted list for this event included some top tier 4*s all of whom I have champed (Chavez, Grocket, Captain Marvel, and Rogue). My hope is by documenting and sharing my experience it might help some others who are similarly wondering…do I have what it takes and is it worth it to do SCL 9?
Day 1:
Honor Among Thieves:
Opening node was super easy. So easy, I don’t even remember who I used or if they were required. So far so good.
I Have a Plan:
Opening node also super easy. 8 black came quick, Carol’s photonic barrage strike tiles started kicking in before the enemy CD tiles starting ticking off, killing off enemy 1. Enemy 2 went down when the tile resolved, enemy 3 taken out by Thor’s Mjolnir. Still on cruise control.
5e: Right to the hard stuff. My level 255 2/0/1 Ghost Rider gets equipped with the level 200 Sharon Carter support for the extra red & blue damage plus most importantly increased crit multiplier because I expect to generate lots of crits thanks to 'Merica! Heck yeah. 'Merica gets my level 87 Vintage Shield because it boosts yellow damage (she’ll be my strongest yellow user) and it gives me about a 1/3 shot to start with 3 Yellow AP. Added Hood to boost AP collection and strapped him with my level 50 Quantum Realm support for a 22% chance to start with 5 purple AP. Strategy is to try to get each enemy’s HP down equally, until a CD is out then always target the one with the CD closest to resolving that I can’t match away. Get a rainbow of AP quick to get 'Merica’s crits going then juice up whichever colors the enemy produces to stay ahead in those. Maybe get enough extra to be able to afford firing a power or two but that’s secondary. Hood’s yellow can take out some CDs in a pinch but takes a ton of AP to get there.
OMG what have I done. Some bad boards and high enemy HP made me take 3 tries to get the first 2 clears, plus eat 2 health packs. I realized the toons only generate red and green (except when they destroy tiles, which comes later in the round) and I need someone better than Hood. 3* Strange doesn’t damage enough. I could go Valkyrie, but my strongest color is red and I have no active red powers other than Valkyrie’s, which since she’s neither champed (the magic level 209) nor boosted isn’t worth it. 4* Luke would throw out some protect tiles but when the CDs are doing 10K+ it will barely make a dent. Anyone else will use AP which could diminish 'Merica’s value so I take Peggy, re-spec her to 3/5/5 so her passive slows down the tile producers and if I get enough blue I can stun 2 of them for 3 turns. I was too lazy to put a support on her but probably should have swapped over something that would generate start of match AP or boost purple damage or both.
Some close calls, and poor Robbie ate some damage and health packs. If I started with an awful board, I’d just immediately retreat and restart so it was another 3 tries to finish the last 2 clears. No deaths but needed 2 more health packs when all was said and done. If you’re tracking, that’s 4 health packs in one node. Granted the other nodes should be easier, but at this rate I’m worried about running dry before I make it through, meaning my PvP goes on hold and/or I’m going to have to rotate characters. The difficulty was high enough that I’m not sure it’s worth it to try to get any more clears on this node tomorrow. And I already got the CP prize so I’d only lose out on some RISO and ISO.
4e: Kept my 2 sidekicks as described above partnered with Carol. This wasn’t bad. No health packs needed, cruised through 4 clears.
3e: Same story: same 2 sidekicks for Thor, easy 4 clears, no health packs.
2e: Same story: same 2 sidekicks for Hawkeye, easy 4 clears, no health packs. I’m feeling a rhythm.
Node 1: Grocket + random GotG member + Thanos respeced to 3/5/5: with Rocket’s boost, any Court Death will wipe the rest of the living and I just want to minimize self-damage to preserve health packs. Don’t need to bother with supports. 1 clear done.
Node 2: Wave node. Dang it! Forgot about the wave nodes in this event or I would not have started with 5e. Two clears same team as Node 1 easy as pie.
Node 3: 1 clear, same team, easy as pie
Node 4: Back to my go-to from the 5e node: Robbie, 'Merica, and Peggy, speced as outlined above. Easy clear.
Node 5: 1 clear, same team, easy as pie.
Node 6: Same team. Another wave node. I’m appreciating how much 'Merica was built for wave nodes. I love it when Fear Not, Mi Gente! generates a crit that downs the last enemy in one wave so the next wave arrives and it’s still my turn! Boom, 2 easy clears.
Node 5: Same team, 3 clears, easy as pie.
Node 4: Same team, 3 clears, easy as pie.
Node 3: Back to Grocket + random GotG member + Thanos. 3 clears
Node 1: Same team, 3 clears. Done
Conclusion: who is boosted matters a lot, but other than the 5e, it didn’t feel harder than a typical SCL 8 (though SCL 8 with this boosted list would likely be a breeze). Not sure how long it took since I got interrupted several times. Things go so much faster with 'Merica because her value is in her passives, which saves time. So far the dread I had after the 5e is gone and I don’t regret it, although other than a 3 CP prize I got for something (a wave node?) I haven’t yet realized a material increase in rewards–that will depend on future progress.
Plan for tomorrow: 3 more clears of everything but 5e. I’m worried I will struggle in future sub 5e nodes to get even 4 clears, and this is all about getting the event final CP progression prize. I think I’ll try 5e once more on this sub before it ends and if I wipe, just forget it. Then when the next sub opens, we’ll try the same strategy (looking out for wave nodes first).
More tomorrow.
Day 2
I’m not going for placement and I’m so excited about my success, I decide to start several hours before the sub ends to take my first run through to ensure I can get all the nodes hit 3 more times and see what happens in the 5e. I keep all the same teams as yesterday, and run through each node once in ascending order of point values: node 1, opening node, node 3, node 4, etc. I get to the 5e and take my time–nearly 100K HP per enemy is no joke. I get lucky a bit with the enemy CD placement being able to match them away and by the time the CDs were out of control, I had downed 1 enemy and had enough blue to fire Peggy’s stun twice. Cleaned up entirely with 0 damage.
As I beamed proudly at my newfound accomplishment, ready to start my second run through, only then do I realize it’s a 48 hour sub and I wasted a bunch of points by hitting them all before they fully recharged. DOH!
On the bright side, if that’s my biggest failure, I will consider the transition a success. No more playing until tomorrow. At least, no more PvE…
Day 3
Part 1: I Have a Plan finish: Before the first sub closes, I’m back hitting each node again, same strategies and teams as before. I fly through without a hitch, clearing all the node prizes (total 6x on normal nodes and 4x on wave nodes), even on the 5e. I think about hitting a few more but remind myself I’m not going for placement and clearing nodes during rest periods between exercises at the gym takes too long, so I’m happy with my progress and stop. After the sub closes, I place somewhere in the mid-100’s. I realize if I could have gotten in the top 100 I would have gotten an extra 2 CP, but I won’t lose any sleep.
Part 2: Backup Plan, new sub: Same teams and strategies as before. I can’t remember before I start if there are wave nodes so I start with one clear of each of the non-essential nodes to open the board. No wave nodes so I go back to the previous strategy of hitting each node 4x in descending order of point values. Except the 5e.
The 5e mindless ones this time are out of control, spamming 20K+ damage CDs like rain. Never mind that when the round opens, they start with an attack + strike tile combo that is doing 3600 passive damage each turn! Peggy doesn’t seem to slow them down enough, so I switch to Vulture. No luck there, because even at 5/3/5 Vulture’s just not fast enough to keep up with removing all the special tiles. I manage to get through 3 clears but fail 4x at the 4th clear and give up. I won’t be back to this node anytime soon.
The rest are very straightforward and not any tougher than yesterday. Feeling good about hitting max progression without a hitch. On track for T-200 overall, but I can’t recall how the prizes for SCL 9 T-200 compare to SCL 8 T-100 (50 on a good day, 25 on a really good day).