Best characters/teams/strategies for countdown goons

Unknown

I like my maxed out level 1 hawkeye but sometimes he can only do so much because of his low health. I try to hide him behind Ares or Thor but highly leveled goon teams can take them out too. Thanks!

PUM_SPAK

My countdown goon strategy begins and ends with Captain America. Once you have his Blue and/or Red up to 5, then you can target the countdown tiles at will. Cap starts slowly, but once you get about 18-20 AP, he can get a nice rotation of two or three shields in play. Use Peacemaker(s) to repeatedly stun the most powerful character while you whittle down the minions.

TxMoose

obw is also a heavy hitter on good nodes. her blue increases the cd of all opponent cds on the board. add the ap steal and add some damage dealers and good nodes can usually get handled pretty easily.

Quebbster

Falcon and Captain America in combination works pretty well. Just put in a black/green character of your choice to round out the team - I prefer X-force Wolverine, but Punisher has worked well too.

Unknown

I'm not sure where you are in your transition, my original 1* PVE goon team:
Iron Man/Storm/Hawkeye

Hawkeye (purple and red help clear countdowns)
MStorm (green destroys and grabs AP, yellow helps move the board if needed, black is damage)
Iron Man 35 (damager)

As I moved into 2*, I replaced Iron Man 35 with Thor for better damage and cascades. Hawkeye was replaced with OBW.
Thor/OBW/MStorm

However, due to the overlap on Green, and Cap's better countdown control at 3/5/5, I switched in Cap.
Cap/OBW/MStorm. (slower than Thor, but better control).

Into 3*, I've switched Caps and Storms for their higher powered equivalents. I've been subbing Blade in for OBW, but this only works where the goons have higher AP abilities, eg, not for ninjas. With this configuration, I focus more on Black/Blue and hold off on matching red so that Thirst can kick in.
LCap/Blade/MoStorm

Unknown

Don't forget about Moonstone. As part of a 1-2 star team with Modern Storm and Captain America, she provides surprisingly good countdown control. Before 4* Thor, the highest damage you could do was with control-shifted high level countdown tiles. I know I must sound like some sort of Moonstone apologist (read: Developer spy), but I used her all the time in PvE and that team specifically against opponents at all scaling levels.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Don't forget about Moonstone. As part of a 1-2 star team with Modern Storm and Captain America, she provides surprisingly good countdown control. Before 4* Thor, the highest damage you could do was with control-shifted high level countdown tiles. I know I must sound like some sort of Moonstone apologist (read: Developer spy), but I used her all the time in PvE and that team specifically against opponents at all scaling levels.

Oh Moonstone. When I first got her Control Shift cover I thought "This is a great antigoon ability". Then I saw it's cost 17 (6 matches!) and that was a real turn off. And her purple when there are multiple CDs is random so is wasted more often than not. If either of these two abilities were fixed (cheaper black or not random but targeted purple) I'd probably use her. At this current stance it's just a pain to see these two potentially good abilities are garbage

Unknown

At that cost, I find it's better to clog the board with 2 Hailstorms and hope the color the AI uses isn't available. At worst case, the countdowns will tend to appear near the top of the screen on newer tiles making them generally easier to clear. Even Yelena is better, dealing with 2 countdowns for 13 AP. Also if you're dealing with Kishu specifically, Hailstorm is always the best counter to Caltrops. I find control shift more useful as a TU.

TxMoose

just played **capAm, mnmags, Cyclops (1/1/1) on a couple of goon only nodes and it worked very well. mags purple and cyc yellow feed shields (mags feeds both shields now) and if you can cast back to back you can get some crazy cascades. then just start throwing shields and cast the occasional cyc black. once it gets going going I'm not sure this combination would ever let a cd get off. you only over write what you can't match away. you do have to be careful about when you cast mags purple and cyc yellow - you don't want a cascade to wipe a shield cd. but so far so good with this group. I mentioned this in the general team thread, but if you have an leveled Lcap and Cyclops, I would be interested to try this on one of the crazy scaled goon nodes. unfortunately my Lcap and Cyc are very early in their journey and not priorities for now.

dstann

I am a 2 to 3 * transition player and my current go to team is 2* bw, 2* mags, and xforce. bw to increase the countdown timers, mags for his pink ability which creates blue for bw and xforce because both his black and green abilities destroy tiles if you need them. In the last event I was able to beat goons whose level was over 300. You just have to rush to get blue and/or pink at the start.

Wil88

My anti-goon team is OBW/falcon/patch.

Falcon and OBW keep the countdown tiles at bay, and if you keep falcon at Lvl 102 or lower, OBW's double tap covers , and , and does tons of damage once beserker rage goes off.

Can often beat the lvl 300+ goons without taking any dmg.

Unknown

I've been a big fan of Daken/Blade/Falcon. You can load up the red tiles quickly, and since your opponent isn't shifting the board, after a few inspirations, you can hit for 1k+ with each move, plus you still have the bird to knock off errant countdown tiles.

dswan3rd

Since you mentioned 1* Hawkeye, I assume your roster is still in the early stages and I'd take a look at Juggernaut as well - he has high enough health to survive a few attacks and a cheap board shake with his .

Houtro

By what you are saying guess you are on 2* land so OBW is the answer, her with someone with strike tiles is great or somebody with board shake skill. Depends of your roster.