Maggia Muscle - How to deal with them?

Unknown

Ok, these guys just kill me. They hit all three of your heroes every time they fire. I find it extremely hard to win matches against them, even when I am well above them in level. I've got an IM* level 32, MBW*27 and MS 20 and I still lose to level 20 Muscle. Unless I am extremely lucky with MBW getting a lot of blues for stuns, I'm just doomed. These guys do over 600 points of damage when they fire. So two shots kill MBW and Storm, then one more shot kills IM. Is there some strategy here that I am missing. Because these guys are just killing me. I feel like an idiot every time I play them.

Unknown

Level-for-level, they're probably the toughest opponents in the game. That being said, the personnel you have aren't ideal for fighting them. Modern Storm can help, but her tile elimination is imprecise. Modern Black Widow can freeze them before the tiles go off (which also freezes the tiles, providing you're freezing the right guy). Classic Hawkeye can take out their tommy gun tiles (which you need to take out one way or another) and may be the best of the 1* characters for dealing with them. Really, you need 2* characters like Original Black Widow to have the best chance of dealing with them.

Realistically, I'd wait and come back to them. They're not essential to move on to higher missions.

Unknown

Thanks for the feedback, at least I don't feel so stupid now I was just wondering if I was doing something wrong and it sounds like I wasn't. I'm new to the game and have to go with what I have early on. Again, thanks.

Heh, too bad I sold off my Classic Hawkeye, I had read that he wasn't that good. I guess I need to start stabling heroes to use in specific situations. Well, back to the drawing board!

Unknown

Yes, Classic Hawkeye is my MVP for clearing enemy countdown tiles. Captain America is also good with max red and blue skills.
Black Widow to stun/delay and steal AP.

Unknown

Bagman is surprisingly good against them too, tho I wonder how many people keep him around

chamber44

Eidolone wrote:

Bagman is surprisingly good against them too, tho I wonder how many people keep him around

i bought the Patch 10 pack (sucker).

i got 5 Bagman covers (****).

however, since he's buffed, he's is slightly useful fighting the Maggia (except that his AP requirements are way too high).

Unknown

It's certainly not just you, I have trouble with them, too. Along the same lines as Modern Storm's Lightning Storm, Juggernaut has a similar attack that clears a bunch of tiles from the board, and fully leveled (not sure otherwise) costs 6g. Something to keep in mind when you do get Juggs.

Also, when you run into both Maggie Muscle and Thugs, I personally go for the Thugs first. I've noticed that as long as the Muscle are alive, their yellow countdowns tend to only be Muscle countdowns, which throw in damage boost tiles upon completion. As long as you make sure to get rid of the blue Tommy Gun attack tiles when they appear, you should be able to whittle down the Thugs and build up AP for an all-out assault on the Muscle to finish off the fight. It's worked for me.

Sandwichboy

I've found the most reliable way to deal with Muscle and hitman teams is a team of OBW, C Storm and Thor. BW slows down their countdowns and steals blue and yellow, Thor feeds green onto the board and occasionally more yellow (to dump red) and Storm empties the board, feeding a chain reaction and refilling your AP. Repeat. Basically once you can get your first thunderstrike, they're dead. If you don't have OBW filled out, Classic Hawkeye also works well to kill countdowns, though not as ideal.

Unknown

I know most people asking the question don't have access, but Loki's trickery (change enemy strike to friendly protect and enemy protect to friendly strike) is basically an auto-win. Even if you work pretty hard to stop "threaten" you'll usually end up with 3 or 4 enemy strikes. Turn them into protects and suddenly Tommy Gun does 1 damage. Hard to lose after that point.

favabear

Yeah these guys are a pain, especially in Thick as Thieves where they're all over the place and high level. You really have to destroy or delay every single tommy gun tile, and even then you might still get downed when a random threaten tile goes off and makes a match, hitting for 1.5k or more.

As Eiodolone mentioned, Bag Man is pretty decent here. His blue ability buys you a ton of time, and you can charge it up while destroying tommy gun tiles. His other two abilities will also help you handle a countdown tile or two, though the pink one is quite expensive.

Unknown

I go super defensive with OBW / Spidey / Thor. OBW takes care of countdown tiles until at least one enemy is down, then Spidey can stunlock, with OBW's help generating extra blue. Post-nerf Thor is actually better for this purpose than he was before, his red power can clear their yellow tiles, then once he can pop his own yellow, it blows away the board.

I actually won a match like this even without Thor - tommy gun took him out early, but the defensive power of the other two let me still win. It took like an hour. But still...

Unknown

Bagman, 2* Magneto and OBW are solid for fighting these guys. Remember, you can completely ignore the yellow countdown tiles as long as the blues don't fire. Use Bagman's yellow or OBW's blue to extend timers. Use Magneto's ability to create blues to match the countdown tiles away.

Just make sure you have some kind of damage dealer in there too or you'll be whittling them down for ages...

Unknown

Retreat before any Tommy Gun resolves is the #1 biggest difference maker. Seriously, don't stick around to find out what happens when Tommy Gun resolves. It almost always ends with 3 guys dead.

chamber44

how do you retreat on the iOS version? i can't find any button for that

Unknown

chamber44 wrote:

how do you retreat on the iOS version? i can't find any button for that

The little 'pause' button at the top in the middle. Gives you the option to retreat.

chamber44

The Ladder wrote:

chamber44 wrote:

how do you retreat on the iOS version? i can't find any button for that

The little 'pause' button at the top in the middle. Gives you the option to retreat.

thx!