*** Mystique (Raven Darkholme) ***

Unknown

himatako wrote:

Mystique + MNMag + Storm team works really really well for me in Combined Arms. From this, I can easily go with 3/5/5 I have her at 2/4/4 and her blue is already very helpful. Most of the time it fills purple and black enough for me to cast MNMag's purple multiple times and completely max Black AP at 30.

5/5/3 Storm is there to cause more cascade chaos + AP collection when you're lucky and get yellow & green AP. You can easily get a never-ending turn with these three. And when there's only one enemy left, my favourite combo is Shapeshift + Magnetic Flux. I have Magnetic Flux at 5 so it only take 1 turn to activate. This mean more AP collection and huge damage. You can even throw in Masterstroke for more damage after spending your own green, red and yellow AP.

This makes me regret selling Mohawk Storm, since I can see Mystique + MNMag + Mohawk Storm as a great team for some overpowered PvE nodes in future events.

This team is absolutely awful on defense. Also I don't know why you need the storm. You'd be better off with juggernaut. You already have a very strong black.

Unknown

Ryz-aus wrote:

simonsez wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Yeah. If you check my simulator post which is buried on the second page, the chance of cascade increases from 54 to 71%, and the average tiles destroyed almost doubles from 4 to 7 on a standard board. Its a huge deal.

Agreed. Looking at the poll, a lot of people haven't seen your numbers.

Using her more in the pve, this really understates the difference - because of the pairing with mnmags to turn purple into blue, you will easily be firing mystique blue multiple times. Those later firings will be on boards that are heavily biased to purple/black from your previous powers, so your cascade odds go up and mnmags becomes easier to fuel. I don't think I've ever had the second firing of mystique blue not cascade or setup multiple match 5s.

The result is you will consistently end up with an endless turn - even more than you could with the old Cmags blue. I think this is the best pairing now for overpowered pve opponents (over cap/im40).

Yep, my mq is 4/5/4 now and I used this on hard all day to get 2nd place. The other slot goes to essential or hood - you'll fill out mnmags red midway through the combo from the line matches, and you can fire off his red and use hood black for a nice ap boost and 3k damage midway through. Saved my skin a bunch of times. Also if you use mq's blue once, the board gets enough purple and blacks for hood's power to kick in, so even if the board sucks, you can sometimes get the combo going.

Used masterstroke 17 times in one turn once =D

What makes it better than patch/mags/storm is that once the combo gets going, it's very hard to fizzle. And since you can get blue OR purple to start the combo, you're twice as likely to not get doom boards.

Phaserhawk

ark123 wrote:

Ryz-aus wrote:

simonsez wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Yeah. If you check my simulator post which is buried on the second page, the chance of cascade increases from 54 to 71%, and the average tiles destroyed almost doubles from 4 to 7 on a standard board. Its a huge deal.

Agreed. Looking at the poll, a lot of people haven't seen your numbers.

Using her more in the pve, this really understates the difference - because of the pairing with mnmags to turn purple into blue, you will easily be firing mystique blue multiple times. Those later firings will be on boards that are heavily biased to purple/black from your previous powers, so your cascade odds go up and mnmags becomes easier to fuel. I don't think I've ever had the second firing of mystique blue not cascade or setup multiple match 5s.

The result is you will consistently end up with an endless turn - even more than you could with the old Cmags blue. I think this is the best pairing now for overpowered pve opponents (over cap/im40).

Yep, my mq is 4/5/4 now and I used this on hard all day to get 2nd place. The other slot goes to essential or hood - you'll fill out mnmags red midway through the combo from the line matches, and you can fire off his red and use hood black for a nice ap boost and 3k damage midway through. Saved my skin a bunch of times. Also if you use mq's blue once, the board gets enough purple and blacks for hood's power to kick in, so even if the board sucks, you can sometimes get the combo going.

Used masterstroke 17 times in one turn once =D

What makes it better than patch/mags/storm is that once the combo gets going, it's very hard to fizzle. And since you can get blue OR purple to start the combo, you're twice as likely to not get doom boards.

Okay, just played the Hood/MNMags/Mystique combo, holy ****. Good find that thing is insane, I just took down a level 320 Hulk with minimal damage

CrookedKnight

It also plays really nicely with Luke Cage in the current round of essentials. 17 Masterstrokes? How about 20+ Jab-Jab-Crosses?

Phaserhawk

It wasn't until this that I knew you capped at 30 AP for a color

orbitalint

Anyone else wish you could double up on Mags when playing with Mystique? Classic and MN. After the 10th infiltration, there are so many TU tiles that I can hardly place some of these polarity shifts anymore, lol. I want them all to go boom! First world problems, I know

Unknown

orbitalint wrote:

Anyone else wish you could double up on Mags when playing with Mystique? Classic and MN. After the 10th infiltration, there are so many TU tiles that I can hardly place some of these polarity shifts anymore, lol. I want them all to go boom! First world problems, I know

Try Mohawk Storm? I know it's a yellow so it doesn't play nicely with masterstroke but you still might get it off once or twice.

orbitalint

mageofshadow wrote:

Try Mohawk Storm? I know it's a yellow so it doesn't play nicely with masterstroke but you still might get it off once or twice.

Yeah, I know she is there and could help but blasting out 7 of those suckers really not going to make it nearly as fulfilling when there are 15ish on the board and I could've popped it for 3.5k damage from CMags. Oh the cascade possibilities with those 3...we go from insane to more insane, haha.

SangFroid

Sure but Mowhak also has green that you can fir to cascade and grab AP I think she is a better partner for Mystique and MNMags....lol it must be a parallel universe but she actualy is better than CMags in this one unique case...

Unknown

Cyclops can turn TU tiles into reds...so there's some potential there. And his black could turn out to not be awful at 5 covers. We'll see

Unknown

SangFroid wrote:

Sure but Mowhak also has green that you can fir to cascade and grab AP I think she is a better partner for Mystique and MNMags....lol it must be a parallel universe but she actualy is better than CMags in this one unique case...

CMags is eliminated by the MNM use. Mororo is ok-ish for gathering the tiles and keeping the chain up, but she sucks as a damage dealer. And you are fighting against your own ability to get green. My favorite choices for MQ/MNM are BP, then XF, then Daredevil, then Blade, then Daken. Mororo doesn't even make the top 5.

john1620b

Lerysh wrote:

CMags is eliminated by the MNM use. Mororo is ok-ish for gathering the tiles and keeping the chain up, but she sucks as a damage dealer. And you are fighting against your own ability to get green. My favorite choices for MQ/MNM are BP, then XF, then Daredevil, then Blade, then Daken. Mororo doesn't even make the top 5.

Don't forget Captain Marvel. She's my fav to pair with MNMags and Mystique. The black that is generated can stun-lock the entire team, so if you end up breaking the infinite combo, you can do 2 tile matches to generate enough AP to start it again.

Unknown

john1620b wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

CMags is eliminated by the MNM use. Mororo is ok-ish for gathering the tiles and keeping the chain up, but she sucks as a damage dealer. And you are fighting against your own ability to get green. My favorite choices for MQ/MNM are BP, then XF, then Daredevil, then Blade, then Daken. Mororo doesn't even make the top 5.

Don't forget Captain Marvel. She's my fav to pair with MNMags and Mystique. The black that is generated can stun-lock the entire team, so if you end up breaking the infinite combo, you can do 2 tile matches to generate enough AP to start it again.

Meh.

If you're bringing someone to use black, just reach for xforce. The combo doesn't really need it though. Masterstroke takes huge chunks out of characters. I still say it's better to bring in another enabler, like OBW when she's boosted or hood, or someone who tanks purple/blue.

simonsez

Lerysh wrote:

My favorite choices for MQ/MNM are BP, then XF, then Daredevil, then Blade, then Daken. Mororo doesn't even make the top 5.

I can't believe Cage isn't in your top 5. Avoid damage while making matches to get it going, and then 4k damage plus stun for only 6 black...

NorthernPolarity

ark123 wrote:

john1620b wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

CMags is eliminated by the MNM use. Mororo is ok-ish for gathering the tiles and keeping the chain up, but she sucks as a damage dealer. And you are fighting against your own ability to get green. My favorite choices for MQ/MNM are BP, then XF, then Daredevil, then Blade, then Daken. Mororo doesn't even make the top 5.

Don't forget Captain Marvel. She's my fav to pair with MNMags and Mystique. The black that is generated can stun-lock the entire team, so if you end up breaking the infinite combo, you can do 2 tile matches to generate enough AP to start it again.

Meh.

If you're bringing someone to use black, just reach for xforce. The combo doesn't really need it though. Masterstroke takes huge chunks out of characters. I still say it's better to bring in another enabler, like OBW when she's boosted or hood, or someone who tanks purple/blue.

I think it's wrong to bring anyone but X-Force. The thing to realize is that once the combo gets going, it doesn't matter who the third is: the huge hurdle when playing MNM / MQ is getting the combo to go off in the first place, and X-Force is the best at that. Surgical on a relevant color (blue or purple) basically 100% guarantees it, and even if its on a non relevant color, generally that causes the board to become saturated with the important colors. X-Force is great to have as board clear as well.

BP is 100% winmore. None of his abilities help you get to the combo, they just make the game quicker once you're already off. But once you've gone off, you've already won so BP doesn't help the team in any meaningful way.

The only argument I see is maybe Cage since he prevents a lot of match damage on MQ, but even then, none of his abilities help you get to the combo. When you're facing a 395 juggs and need to go off to win, a 1 turn stun isn't going to do anything for you, and the def tile does nothing when your main lose condition is getting headbutted.

A lot of the comments in this thread revolve around "oh, if I go off, now I have all this black that I can use to win the game!". The thing about that is that MQ already does that with masterstroke. The struggle is getting the combo in the first place, and X-Force is irreplaceable for doing so. The fact that surgical is fueled by the combo (since you have a lot of black to work with), and in turn fuels the combo both directly and indirectly (generating either favorable board states and/or colors for the combo) is something that literally no other black ability has the capacity to do.

One could argue, "but BP is a lot faster than X-Force when you do go off! Speed matters!". Well, yes and no. First off, speed doesn't matter if BP can't get you to the combo in the first place, and thats a real possibility since he doesn't do anything before you have already gone off. Secondly, there are far faster teams than MNM / MQ if speed did matter, such as anything involving LadyThor. MNM / MQ is brought out to give you reliable wins vs the hardest node in the PvE, where you just need to reliably kill them and not wipe the game.

Understanding combo decks in MTG probably help a lot to understanding this concept. MTG had a lot of random combo decks, that once the combo was assembled, would kill you with some silly kill condition (such as gaining infinite life, putting all the cards in your deck into the graveyard, etc) that took repeatedly doing the same thing to infinitely gain a little more every time. MNM / MQ is about repeatedly generating black AP for free. Once you do that infinitely, it doesn't matter what you kill them with because they're already dead: it just needs to be something that kills them in a reasonable amount of time, and masterstroke is perfect for doing so.

Unknown

So I beat the entire third gauntlet with 1*Storm and level 94 Magstique against all 395s. Only Doom took more then 2 tries, most took 1. I didn't use any boosts but if I has used BP stock I don't think I'd have ever lost. NP is right that it is irrelevant who does the most damage with black, all that matters is helping get the combo off. Spiderman is actually pretty great if he is higher level since he can prevent tons of damage while matching purple and tanking.

Unknown

Agreed with the 2 posts above: The only time damage matters with the combo is if you don't have 5 blue covers in Mystique and you can't guarantee it's infinite; it's definitely one of the covers worth buying with hp. Having a good black damage ability just speeds up the process, but again X-Force or Mororo are more useful in starting the chain/keeping it alive.

Heck, you could even use juggernaut if your x-force is some how downed; the 3rd is that irrelevant.

vudu3

NorthernPolarity wrote:

BP is 100% winmore. None of his abilities help you get to the combo, they just make the game quicker once you're already off. But once you've gone off, you've already won so BP doesn't help the team in any meaningful way.

BP tanks blue and black for Mystique. That's important. He has almost as much health as the other two characters combined. He's great for soaking up any ability damage you may take when setting up the infinite combo.

simonsez

Goobady wrote:

So I beat the entire third gauntlet with 1*Storm and level 94 Magstique against all 395s.

How did you get it going consistently without succumbing to match damage?

Phaserhawk

I ran Magistique + Luke Cage, his red can prevent loads of early match damage, which is the problem, once you prevent that you just have to get the lock in before they start to go off.

Goobady wrote:

So I beat the entire third gauntlet with 1*Storm and level 94 Magstique against all 395s. Only Doom took more then 2 tries, most took 1. I didn't use any boosts but if I has used BP stock I don't think I'd have ever lost. NP is right that it is irrelevant who does the most damage with black, all that matters is helping get the combo off. Spiderman is actually pretty great if he is higher level since he can prevent tons of damage while matching purple and tanking.

I chuckled when you said Doom took more than 2 tries. Yeah, when you boost purple and black for him bad things will probably happen, lol.