So we’ve had ten 4* releases since the developers decided to move away from the 50/50 Latest/Classic token odds. As such, many players haven’t had a chance to play some of the more recent releases with them being buried in dilution purgatory. I figured I’d provide some insight into the characters for those wondering what to expect.
Disclaimer: I’ve yet to champ Domino and Bishop so know that their rankings are based more on projections. All the others are champed and I’ve played with. I may update this list as more people are released and as I have a chance to play with Bish/Dom more.
Emma Frost (Astonishing X-Men)
Recommended Build: 3/5/5
Emma is not just one of the worst recently released 4s, she is probably the worst in the entire game. Her main issue is that the cost of all of her powers is way too high, only one is decent, and everything she does is done better by others. A shame for a character desired by so many comic book fans.
For the cost of 10 AP, Psychic Meddling (purple) will either destroy enemy S/P/A (Strike, Attack, Protect) tiles or destroy enemy AP. You’d think being in her opponents mind maybe she could steal some? Nah. I think she was one of many attempts to counter the Grocket meta but needing 4 purple matched and a 2-turn repeater to resolve to remove 2-4 tiles is way too long. You’d be dead twice before that happens.
Girls Best Friend (black) isn’t much better. Emma will fortify friendly specials for a whopping 11 AP and then turn to diamond, where she does 260-325% match damage. While that is pretty cool, a) Ghost does 300% for FREE, and b) if Emma goes diamond she can no longer fire other powers until you get rid of all the fortifieds you scoured the board for black AP to get. Yikes.
Finally, her one decent power Labor for Learning (yellow), costs 8, puts out yet another repeater, and every two turns will put out weak strikes and buff three of them. When you compare that to Nico who does a bigger buff of every single tile you have more of and does so for free, you realize that even Emma’s best power is actually pretty bad.
Wiccan (Billy Kaplan)
Recommended Build: 5/3/5
While a step up from Emma, Wiccan suffers the same fate she does ultimately, which is a Grocket counter who is too slow to the draw. While he has some fun and unique elements that at least make him different from other characters, he still comes up short in terms of his effectiveness.
His blue ability (Mystical Destiny) is a passive that… does nothing actually… that is until you collect 6-8 AP of every color. At that point he becomes the Demiurge! What that means (aside from glowy eyes) is any match HE makes (read: he must tank) will clear entire lines/columns and collect the AP. Also of note is once he transforms, there is no going back, meaning once you transform, you get to spend the 6 AP per color you stockpiled for the switch. Unfortunately, the squishy Wiccan also becomes the target of all enemy attacks on defense, but again, needs to tank on offense. Kind of a rough trade off. BUT…
For 9 AP, Magical Barrier (yellow) creates 3-4 countdowns that allow Mr. Kaplan to negate match damage by 17-20% each! Unfortunately, these tiles do nothing for enemy powers. Fortunately, Wiccan gets to heal when the tiles are matched. The reality is you don’t WANT your 90 pound wizard (or whatever he is) to tank, so his yellow really just exists to mitigate the drawbacks of his blue that requires 42-54 AP to kick off and requires him tanking for it to do anything. How’s that for a start??
Finally, Chain Lightning (green) is a power that is cool in concept but poor in execution. The idea is, for 12 AP he does a decent chunk of damage (around 8K) and then will destroy a selected column. He will randomly destroy another and if it has an enemy special he will continue the process until he finally hits a column without an enemy special. Spoiler… for most that will be turn two. Ultimately, Chain Lightning is his only damage dealing power and you are not doing great damage for the cost. It is no secret that the developers cost board shake highly and so the result is a pretty mediocre green in a sea of better greens. I think this was another attempt at countering Grocket but like with Emma, by the time you make the 4 green matches needed to start the process, he’s died twice. If the power did less damage but was way faster (you know, like lightning??) and more spammable, we would have a nice counter to several special tile teams. Instead, we have this weird overcosted wizard tank… sigh.
Nebula (Infinity War)
Recommended Build: 3/5/5
Nebula has two main problems. One, a better version was released right after her in the form of Dazzler (discussed later)… who even uses the same red/green color scheme. And two, the developers returned to an archaic formula we have not seen in awhile. Mainly the Falcap / X-23 (neither of these names scream out “all-star”… so you know we’re off to a good start) mechanic of needing to fill two colors in order to get the big payoff.
Warped Enhancements (blue) is likely the power you leave at 3 covers. Nebula puts down a repeater for 9 AP that allows you to place a strike and heal a small chunk of damage each time it goes off. While not a bad power it is just too slow to really be effective.
Galactic Rage (green) does absolutely nothing unless you have special tiles on the board. If you do, then (for 10 AP) she does a nice chunk of AOE damage for each special on the board. Note that unlike Dazzler, Nebula counts all special tiles (not just friendly) when tallying up AOE damage. Not too shabby! Still, you want to hold onto this power until the board is appropriately flooded.
Luckily, Grim Efficiency (red) helps with that. For 8 AP, she creates attack tiles- the number of which is directly related to the number of green AP you are holding. So, you need to stockpile both green and red, then fire her powers in that specific order. After which you do some decent AOE damage and get a lot of attack tiles to bat cleanup. 18 AP is a bit pricey and on a red dry board you run the risk of not having places to put your attacks having collected all the red to fire the dang power in the first place (same issue with Falcap Yellow).
Black Widow (Infinity War)
Recommended Build: 5/3/5
Natasha can best be described as a “jack of all trades, master of none support character”. She does have actives in yellow/purple, which is nice considering the other four colors are much more prevalent in the tier. Widow is a fine character but a boost week will barely help most of her powers and she doesn’t quite have a niche that sets her apart from others with one exception (see: below).
Lights Out (black) is Widow’s best ability and her one niche. That is, a stun on a color where we don’t normally see stuns. It is costlier than other top tier stuns at 3 turns for 8 AP, but most of the top tier stuns all use blue AP. The beefier cost may be due to all the other stuff she does including a very small amount of damage (that I’d happily give up for an extra turn or a 6 AP cost) and a passive that destroys 2 random enemy AP each turn you begin with the enemy stunned (and not necessarily by her hand).
Defilade/Enfilade (purple) is much like Miles Morales’ purple Hide and Seek/Surprise! Only, Widow is a better hider (more invisibility tiles), while her surprise is more like a light startle. While he pops out and does massive damage, she will destroy her invisibility tiles and some enemy specials, doing damage and collect AP.
Finally, Brush Pass (yellow) gives a massive chunk of burst heal to a targeted character and places a countdown that reduces all friendly powers by up to 3 AP. This is a pretty good power, but the meat of it (reduced cost) is done passively by Star-Lord and Shuri given the proper conditions for triggering.
So overall, Natasha is a good, not great character. She is pure support doing barely any damage, and when facing her, she is one you can definitely save for last without too much fear of it coming back to bite you. She does a lot of things others do, just not necessarily in the same package. She won’t be a liability if you play her like some other others on this list but you probably won’t reach for her much either.
Spider-Man (Infinity War)
Recommended Build: 4/4/5
Spider-Man definitely has the fun factor going for him and can be downright brutal on the right team, which is actually his biggest weakness. He needs to be handcuffed to Miles Morales in order to truly shine, and he also needs to tank. Meaning for vets and 5* players he shines much less brightly.
Quick Reflexes (blue) is a fun power that passively creates two web tiles every time he makes a match (which is where the tanking comes in). When you build a team that allows him to spam webs and bring along characters who benefit from said webs (like the aforementioned Miles’ AP gen or Gwen’s passive heal) it can get crazy. Also included in this power is a nifty ability to reduce incoming power damage by 9-12% PER WEB! I’ve had many mega-nukes hit for 1 damage. Quick reflexes make Spidey a nuisance to fight, but not impossible. Each time he takes damage from an ability half the webs on the board are removed, so spamming him with quick powers will weaken him fast, as will high match damage (like a certain 4* meta running around).
Thwip, Thwip Pow! is mostly just a power used to spam even MORE webs. It hits 7-8 random tiles and if they are standard tiles it turns them to webbed tiles. A “cool-when-it-happens-but-I-won’t-build-around-it” piece of the power is it fortifies friendly tiles and locks enemy tiles if they happen to be the tiles hit.
Finally, Proportional Punch (red) allows Peter to um… punch… with the proportional strength of a Spider! Like his defensive blue, his offensive red is also fueled by webs. He does a small amount of base damage plus a nice chunk of additional damage for each web in his colors and a smaller amount for each web tile on the board not in his colors. Like his running buddy Miles, with enough webs present he can punch (pun intended) way above his weight class- even unboosted. Boosted (where he’s more likely to tank) he can be a one-man wrecking crew!
Taskmaster (Tony Masters)
Recommended Build: 3/5/5
The only real issue with Taskmaster is the fact that he’s limited. Many people (myself included) have Devil Dino as one of their highest leveled 4* characters. If they open the Taskmaster floodgates so he’s as rewarded as the Dino, he could be a simulator all-star for many players. While his 4* powers scale slightly better than the people he studies, the 2-3* abilities are much much worse. Which is unfortunate as there are some great powers here (Speedshot, A Little off the Top, Star Spangled Avenger, Sniper Rifle, etc.) that would be excellent if the damage scaled as it should.
Photographic Reflexes (red) is arguably Taskmaster’s weakest ability. You are probably most likely going to set a nuke here (Winter Solidier or Luke Cage) and forget it. But you can also do Star-Lord’s punch on a CD-heavy team or Deadpool’s slice on a team the benefits from spamming quick powers. Or some Grim Efficiency on a team that benefits from specials. So while red is the nuke color, know that you have other options for niche teams.
Conversely, Photographic Reflexes (blue), is Tasky’s best power. The issue is that doing what Peggy says is almost always the best option so other great options like a second nuke (Kate Bishop) or Daredevil’s stun are likely to not get played (unless playing a Crash). Fun fact that blue is the only color to sport a passive (Speedshot), and while not the best power due to the aforementioned scaling issues, you always have the option to set it there when pairing him with an equally good blue user (of which there are many).
Finally, similar to Photgraphic Reflexes (blue), Photographic Reflexes (black) has a power that stands out above other options with Moonsilver Blades which affords the Master of Tasks the ability to do big damage to a random target. He also boasts the ability to stun in two colors with 3* Gamora (damn scaling!) or to siphon some AP with 3* Blade (again… ugh. I swear if these powers were scaled properly we’d actually have some much tougher choices for how to build him!). Finally, Quack Fu (Task Fu?) may have some niche uses and actually hit harder than Howard’s kick due to the fact that you are not collecting green to destroy green. Tasky definitely gives great options from super powerful to downright silly. For example, Star-Lord red/ Hawkeye blue / Howard black could allow for Quack Fu cascades, into Speed Shot Match fives, into CD-fueled punches. I mean… why not?
Bishop (Classic)
Recommended Build: 5/5/3
Bishop is probably the most controversial character on this ranking as people tend to love him or hate him depending on what you value. He easily supplants Carnage, Deadpool, Dazzler, Thing, Rogue, etc. as the top troll character and one of the best defensive characters in the game- period. The problem is on offense he is a suicide bomber that will ultimately cost you many, many, MANY health packs!
Overclocked (red) is a passive ability with two parts. First, if an enemy were to take even a small amount of damage (902 champed), he jumps in front and becomes the target of the attack. Then, when he’s taken enough damage he fires back passively (ala Dr. Strange) for an even greater amount. The fact that the only way he can deal damage AT ALL is to get smacked really hurts in my opinion. But this power is on a short list of best defensive annoyances. Especially when paired with…
General Reserves- Bishop’s blue passive- says each time he takes a certain amount of damage (only 451 damage champed!) he can gain up to 5 Blue AP! Once he gets 10 AP stored, this power becomes Energy Conversion which for 10 AP can stun up to 4 turns and destroy up to 6 enemy strongest colored AP. Whether or not you use Energy Conversion as your blue outlet or bring along someone else, you definitely want to spend as soon as you can to keep that passive churning out the AP.
Finally, For the Future has both an active and passive component. He passively will remove 2 friendly protect tiles at the beginning of the turn in exchange for 2-3 blue AP (yo dawg I heard you like blue AP!). The active component costs 10 AP and simply replaces enemy specials with protects. With no specials to replace the power does nothing, but it will overwrite any enemy special including repeaters, countdowns and invisibility tiles.
So overall, Bishop’s value is as a battery and defensive deterrent. Even 5* players need to be weary when facing him due to the fact that their match damage alone could fill up blue enemy reserves. Consequently, they could be staring down the barrel of a lengthy stun. His well documented weaknesses are lack of any active damage dealing abilities and the drain on healthpacks that come with him him hopping in front of everything. I imagine many creative teams will be formed once more people have him champed and he will be a pain to deal with. But I don’t see many using him for their climbs unless paired with some awesome healing like Carndusa (that’s actually a heck of a team). In a tier with 75+ and growing characters having one whose niche is “annoying” isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Ghost (Quantum Thief)
Recommended Build: 3/5/5
Ghost is one of the better new releases we have had in the 4* tier. Like Grocket, she does heavy damage up front (though not nearly as much) in the form of increased match strength. She has a nuke that hits like a truck, and can can self-fuel as well. She’s an overall solid release with good powers who’s main niche will be high match damage for those not in 5* land.
Supply Run (purple), helps Ghost do what she does best. Turn invisible. 10 AP is kind of costly for a power that just creates 2-4 invisibility tiles. A cool passive component is that she heals when you match ANY invisibility tiles (not just her own or even friendly tiles). Between the invisibility and heal she has some decent staying power.
Unphased (red) is Ghost’s only direct damage-dealing ability. For 10 AP, she does a decent amount of damage, but the power becomes a super-nuke if she happens to be invisible when she casts it. Boosted and invisible, it becomes a super duper red nuke (admittedly in a tier full of super duper red nukes, but still…). Her one big drawback is this is really a 20 AP move if you consider you want to collect ten red AND purple to get the most out of it. In a game where speed is king, this definitely hurts. However her blue ability does help offset this cost (see below).
Ghost’s best power is the passive Power Cycle (blue) that gives her up to a 300% bump in match damage. Whenever she fires a power she pops out a 3 turn countdown tile. While her countdown is on the board, her blue power becomes “Stasis Protocol” and her match damage “drops” to only a 100% increase. However, she gets up to 6 red AP when the countdown expires, and once it is gone, blue becomes Power Cycle once again. So, the beauty of Ghost is she is both a “brute force” character with the high match damage, but also a finesse character with all of her powers interacting. Cast purple and if the invisibility tiles and countdown don’t get matched away, red does over double the damage for under half the cost. Very cool design.
Dazzler (Classic)
Recommended Build: 4/4/5
After much false forum speculation with every other character hint before her, Dazzler finally made her way to MPQ with much fanfare! She is overall a very solid design that is in my opinion the first solid counter to Rocket and Groot. The fact that she was released directly after Nebula and their red/green powers are SO similar is head-scratching to say the least. However, some not so small improvements given to Dazzler were enough to bump her up significantly over her blue buddy on this list and make her the go to choice if you must choose one (and really there’s never a reason to play them together).
Let me start by saying I hate powers that make you tank in order to trigger, and I hate powers that trigger off getting smacked around (I’m trying not to take damage!). Dazzler’s black passive Survivor contains both. However, the payoff is pretty sweet. For every two friendly S/P/A tiles on the board, she removes 1-2 enemy S/P/A tiles when she gets hit hard enough. What this means is with enough friendly tiles, she could get hit once and wipe all of Grockets annoying strike tiles. Unfortunately that means Grocket stays atop the meta as he’s the only one who can put down that many friendly specials on turn 1. Oh well. But what if you’re not playing a special tile team? I’m so glad you asked! There’s a second part of her power that states if smacked hard enough, she will stun you once for every two friendly S/P/A tiles on the board (up to 4 turns).
Dazzler’s Dance Floor Queen (red) is very similar to Nebula’s red. She puts down a bunch of strikes (whereas Nebula puts down attacks). Two things give Dazzler an advantage here. One, her strikes will be placed on any color, not just red. Two, the power isn’t dependent on holding AP in another color to be effective. She does however place additional strikes the more red AP she holds, which feels more like an added bonus than a necessity for the power to function.
Finally, Dazzler’s Green (Sounds of Light and Fury) is very similar to Nebula’s green. It does very small AOE damage plus additional damage for each friendly special on the board. While it tends to do less damage than Nebula, the spammable nature of the power makes it a hit for characters that benefit from quick-hitting abilities (the Coulsons of the world).
Dazzler manage to do what many characters before her fail to do, and that’s create an effective counter to the current passive damage/special tile meta that is so prevalent in the 4* tier. Emma and Wiccan can remove tiles, but much too slowly and are usually dead before they can fire their powers. Kraven was the closest thing we had to a really good counter, but his problem was other than hunting raccoons he really did not bring much else to the table. Unlike Kraven, Dazzler’s passive actually does something even when not facing special tile users (stun) and her other two powers aren’t garbage! All hail the (dancing) queen!
Domino (X-Force)
Recommended Build: 3/5/5
Domino gets the number one spot due to her very unique mechanics that allow her to be both effective and versatile. She plays the role of a support character who can also be your primary attacker. Her biggest weakness is that she has very low health, but that’s not unheard of for a character that brings as much to the table as she does.
Enter the Fray is a simple green board shake similar to 1* Juggernaut. The number of tiles smashed increases with covers. However, the niche that makes hers 1 AP more (while smashing less) is she does not target black tiles.
Dom’s green pairs wonderfully with her black passive Not Just Luck (yes I’m discussing this one out of order, but for good reason), which simply increases the chances (up to 100%) that new tiles will be black. So fire green to shake up the board and her black gives a higher chance to get cascades and stacks of black AP.
So Dom can fill the board with black, making her a great battery for another character, but what is she to do with a board full of black AP? That’s where Knock Them Down (red) comes in. For 9 AP she destroys half the black tiles on the board (more cascades!) and deals damage for each. 1474 champed to be exact. That’s… a lot of damage. Consider that Surgical Strike does 781 per tile and is considered a pretty great power despite its many issues. The main problems are you might not get much upon the first cast if the board is dry (Domino will make sure that’s not the case), the board will definitely be dry if cast it and the strongest color doesn’t change (again, not a problem for Dom) and it’s costly (Dom’s is 2AP cheaper). Sure Dom only destroys half versus Logan taking out all tiles, but doing almost double the damage means it evens out and she will likely come out ahead by not allowing for “bad luck” to impact the power. Her overall potential as a battery for others and super nuke for herself places her as the best character we’ve had since the return to dilution!
