Welcome to the latest article in our series of character reviews about the popular game Marvel Strike Force where we break down the kits to tell you how best to use Thanos and all of the other Heroes & Villains in MSF. While we do not claim to have all of the answers in this game, we do our research and have used every character we write about extensively while also giving you a little background on their story. These are reviews based on the character’s kit and actual gameplay to help you in your quest to dominate the Marvel Strike Force.

 

Thanos

MSF Farm Location: Premium Orbs, Ultimus Orbs, Mega Orbs, Intermittent Thanos Raid

Primary Role: Tank

 

Background/Origin:

Thanos was one of the last sons of A’Lars, progenitor of the second of Eternals on Titan, and Sui-San, the last survivor of the original settlement of Eternals on the moon. He was born with purple, hide-like skin and massive body due to his Devian Syndrome. The very first time his mother saw him, she was driven mad and tried to kill him.

Thanos’ life reached a tipping point when a mysterious girl convinced him to explore a dangerous cave with his friends to overcome his fear of killing. A cave-in separated Thanos from his friends, and he refused to kill the inoffensive creatures that lurked underground for sustenance. After 3 days, he found his friends, who had been killed by the animals living in the cave. After Thanos returned to society, the same girl convinced him to go back to the cave and slaughter the animals.

As a teenager, Thanos wanted to be a scientist like his father. Excelling academically learning faster than he was taught, he began to vivisect creatures in secret in order to gain knowledge while he searched for answers about his own genetic makeup. His search for answers led to him killing fellow Eternals, carrying out the first murders in the history of Titan. Thanos found that he enjoyed killing, and eventually fell in love with the mysterious girl who had become his confidante, and whom further enabled and motivated Thanos’ actions. However, she rejected his advances. At a later point, she reveals herself as the physical manifestation of Death itself, which drove Thanos mad. He gave in to her promises of romance, and used a massive fleet he had acquired to wipe out Titan.

Thanos would go on to vast pursuits of power, losing and then attempting to regain Death’s “love” by obtaining and using Cosmic Cubes, collecting Soul Gems (Infinity Stones), dying and being resurrected by Death, forming the Infinity Gauntlet and removing half the population of the universe to appease her.

Strategies in Marvel Strike Force:

Thanos works best on one of the corners as a tank (more preferably off-tank) providing cover for a cosmic character. Every time an enemy character dies, Thanos will give energy either to himself or a cosmic character adjacent to him. Thanos seems a little squishy for a tank, and it would be preferable if he had a bit more armor. Defense up on him helps mitigate this problem to an extent, so in many cases he operates great as more of an “offense tank” given how hard he can hit and that he gains counter on his basic. His special provides him with one of the few two turn taunts in the game, but this can work against him if he’s going up against heavier hitting squads. His Power Bomb ultimate is one of the better ultimates in the game, especially in raids with multiple enemies on the screen. There’s nothing more enjoyable in the game than seeing a nearly dead Thanos heal himself to full. Some recommend putting Thanos adjacent to two cosmic characters if you need less energy on one (ie. Rocket) to get their abilities off. This does give you the benefit of potentially providing more power to your team, but doing so sacrifices consistency as you now have only a 1-in-3 chance for the character you want to get the extra energy. Pairing him with Minn-erva makes him incredibly more dangerous as every time someone dies, he’s getting healed, she can revive him, and he’ll feed her energy.

Example Team Synergies:

• The Mad Kree – Thanos, Minn-erva, Ronin, Noble, (Capt. Marvel/Reaper/Kree Cyborg)
  Best for: Raids, Blitz, Alliance Wars (Offense)
  Thanos easily replaces Kree Royal Guard in a Kree team composition. Putting him on a corner adjacent to only Minn-erva provides her with much needed extra energy on enemy death, and provides Thanos with some much-needed extra survivability and potential revive should he die. Now that Thanos’ passive fires off if a character dies from bleed, he will be feeding energy left and right to himself and Minn-erva. This team can do some decent work in Raids, but lacks the survivability of other raid teams such as Fury, Wakanda, and Defenders. If Minn-erva goes down…it’s pretty much game over. For DPS, you can run one of Capt. Marvel, Reaper or Kree Cyborg depending on levels/red stars.
• The Anti-Guardians – Thanos, Rocket, Star Lord, Drax, Groot
  Best for: Alliance Wars (Offense), Blitz, Cosmic Campaign
  Thanos can work well in a Guardians team, again on a corner, adjacent to only Rocket Racoon. Putting Star-Lord in the middle, Rocket adjacent to him, and Thanos on the other side will keep Rocket firing off like the crazed rabbit he is. Drax is on the team as the primary tank, since he auto taunts, and take the heat off of Thanos and Groot. Groot provides Rocket with a damage boost, as well as provides healing and cleansing to the team.
• Cosmic Teams
  Best for: Cosmic Campaign
  Thanos will have good viability in any cosmic team as he’s one of only 4 Cosmic tanks (really 3 since Bruiser shouldn’t count), and provides good functionality to any generic Cosmic team. Only Drax could arguably provide more utility with his pre-taunt, but Thanos’ energy feed is hard to ignore or argue against.

Preferred Game Modes:

Thanos is best used in Blitz, Campaigns and Raids. He has some Alliance War viability on offense, but the AI on his defense leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Dorian is a member of the exclusive FoxNext Envoy program for MSF and is one of the hosts for the popular “Ravager Report” podcast that covers all things Marvel Strike Force related. You can find Dorian on the Ravager Report discord (https://discord.me/ravagerreport), and on twitter @dorianblade1 and @ravagerrepo.

Origin/backgrounds are taken in full or in part from the Marvel Fandom wiki.