In the first half of 2020, there have been several character additions that require refactoring legacy teams. Newer players may not have issues with this, but longer playing players need to move around characters.
Part of the challenges of being a long-term player or a returning player is to understand how the metateams are evolving and when to invest in new characters.
Cyclops
Cyclops was introduced in February 2020 as an addition to the X-Men team. There were already 5 X-Men, so an existing X-Men character has to be displaced. This demotivated a lot of players from making the change, particularly since in June 2020, the Cyclops still isn’t farmable, leaving many people with a 3 or 4 yellow star Cyclops.
Even without having high yellow stars (and by implication, high red stars), it is still worth refactoring the team because Cyclops adds additional utility because of his increased offensive output. Generally, you can afford to give away about 25% power in the switch from Psylocke to to Cyclops, so a 60k Psylocke can be replaced with a 45k Cyclops and it is still a net benefit typically.
The primary benefit in doing the switch is that there are more targets for the Cyclops X-Men than the original X-Men. Notably, the Cyclops X-Men can take on Asgardians much more reliably than the original X-Men.
Blob and Toad
Blob and Toad were introduced in February 2020 with the Brotherhood tag. They were introduced to reconstitute the Brotherhood squad which had been fragmented by the introduction of the Marauders which had taken Mystique and Sabretooth in November 2019 with Mr. Sinister and Stryfe.
Even before Marauders came, people were breaking up Brotherhood into hybrid teams by adding in Venom and/or Carnage to capitalize on all the debuffs that fly from Magneto and Pyro and with Symbiote Spider-Man, the Symbiotehood was really powerful. So when Blob and Toad came, there wasn’t an immediate need to spend the gear and gold to bring them up to match Brotherhood, particularly since they both were released in blitz and limited the yellow stars on the characters.
It’s possible to have relatively low yellow stars on Blob and Toad and still have them be effective as counters to Coulson. If they are 30% beneath the rest of the team in power, they can still function effectively and give you a better counter to Coulson — which frees up X-Men to hit other targets.
Brotherhood2.0 can also work as a punchdown against Task Master plus Mercenaries, adding to the utility of the team.
Ironheart
Ironheart came late to the game in June 2020 after being visible in game for several months. She is the fifth Power Armor character. There was a slight rework to the speeds of the Power Armor in March 2020 that reduced the effectiveness of the original Power Armor team that consisted of Vision.
Even with the reduced efficacy of Vision, Power Armor 1.0 was still good and people have been slow to level up Ironheart since she has low yellow stars. Nevertheless, even with 50% lower power than Vision, Ironheart will increase the efficacy of the team.
This has the added benefit of freeing up Vision who can now be repurposed into Technerva with the coming of the Black Order. Another alternative for Vision if Black Order isn’t ready is to make a full tech team with Ultron, Crossbones, Ant-Man, Wasp.
Black Order
The Black Order was a team that was introduced in April and May 2020 after being hinted at shortly after launch in May 2018 when Thanos had a Black Order tag added. This is the new overpowered offensive metateam in the game for the Summer 2020 and everyone should be leveling them up when they unlock Ebony Maw (a 5 star legendary unlock requiring Asgardians).
Most people had their Thanos on a BKT/Minnardians team — a pretty effective team since mid-2018, but there was no question about what to do, which is to have Thanos drop out immediately. The question becomes what to do with the remnants of the Minnardians.
The answer is Technerva, a less common variant involving Minn-Erva and Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Star Lord and centering around Vision. The primary benefit with Technerva is that tech characters spawn with 2 turns of defense up — which was the primary purpose Vision served on Power Armor. This gives Rocket Racoon, Star Lord, and Minn-Erva more sustain when facing burst offenses.
With Iron Heart replacing Vision in Power Armor 2.0, Vision needs a home and Technerva is arguably the best place.
Other choices could be to have a full Guardians of the Galaxy team with Drax and Mantis and have Minn-Erva join Kree allies. Vision can join Avengers. It still doesn’t make sense to have Vision team up with Scarlet Witch since her place on Supernatural is essential. All Red Stars being equal, Technerva offers the best team for the freed up characters with likely little additional investment.
Date: 2020/06/24
Written by: Avenue Assassin
Reviewed by: Captain Bandeet, koopandres
