The Meta Hall of Fame

Vhailorx

Thought it might be fun to create a sequential list of "the best team in the game." (I guess I am a history nerd.)

This is based on my own recollections, it will not be perfect. Please correct me in the thread where I have made mistakes. I will try to update over time if there is any interest in the topic.

== October 2013 ==
(1) Rangarok (2x 2ap powers that feed each other? Hello winfinity!) and loki
(1a) 2* wolvie + 2* thor
(2) 3* Spidey (perma-stun!)
(3) Punisher + obw (strikes + environmental tiles)
(3) cMags + patch (5ap placed blue tiles, 2ap cascades + patch green)

== May 2014 ==
(4) Sentry-bombing (last time all-3* team dominated the meta)
[Vhailorx starts playing MPQ]

== Novemer 2014 ==
(5) Xfw + 4*Thor (all hail thorverine!)

== April 2015 ==
(5a) Xfw + anyone (after 4*Thor nerf)
(6) Prof X + gsbw (very brief interregnum after xfw nerf and before IMHB release)

== May 2015 ==
(7) IMHB + Iron Fist
(8) IMHB + Jean Grey or Thing + Xpool

== October 2015 ==
(9) OML + Iron Fist
(10) OML + Phoenix

== May 2016 ==
(11) GG + IM46?? (current, no clear answer)

What did I miss?

Edited 7/27 to add 2* wolvie + 2* thor

Jarvind

Vhailorx wrote:

Thought it might be fun to create a sequential list of "the best team in the game." (I guess I am a history nerd.)

This is based on my own recollections, it will not be perfect. Please correct me in the thread where I have made mistakes. I will try to update over time if there is any interest in the topic.

== October 2013 ==
(1) Rangarok (2x 2ap powers that feed each other? Hello winfinity!)
(2) 3* Spidey (perma-stun!)
(3) Punisher + obw (strikes + environmental tiles)
(3) cMags + patch (2ap placed blue tiles + patch green)

== May 2014 ==
(4) Sentry-bombing (last time all-3* team dominated the meta)
[Vhailorx starts playing MPQ]

== Novemer 2014 ==
(5) Xfw + 4*Thor (all hail thorverine!)

For the scrubby noobscrubs like me who are just now approaching their 365-day mark, an explanation of these teams would be cool too. I've heard tales of "Thorverine" and "environment tiles" but I've never actually seen a thorough explanation of why these characters' old incarnations were so great. The stuff I see about X-Force Wolverine varies wildly - at one point I saw someone claiming that his black did more damage than it does now, gained AP, and also drained enemy AP or something equally ludicrous.

Also - 2 AP abilities were a thing? Holy nutballs.

revskip

I wasn't around for it but wasn't Hood part of the Sentry team before the nerf?

stochasticism

revskip wrote:

I wasn't around for it but wasn't Hood part of the Sentry team before the nerf?

That's what Sentry bombing was. 3/5/5 sentry and 3/5/5 hood.

The Herald

This is going to be a fun thread to watch unfold!

TO THE POPCORN!

Phumade

Fun topic. The only things I would add is

1. Meta wise, you should mention OBW. While she was never the insta team killer, she dominated the entire state of the game until true healing. The only question in that day and age was who else works with OBW.
2. Hood also could be mentioned here. In that timeframe, Hood was the only character that dictated you had to bring a hood to nullify him.

Minor Meta teams that deserve honorable mention.

Hulk bombing
winfinte 2.0 with mystique
2* wolverine and thor. I think that was the original thorverine combo. (before my time)

For a certain slice of the player base.
Ares/Storm/OBW was the most devastating and cringe inducing team.

Vhailorx

Partial glossary:

Evironmental tiles: you will have to find someone older than me to get a detailed explanation, but these tiles existed before teamups. Different nodes had different envrionments (desert, forest, etc) that each had unique effects. As I recall, obw and punisher were especially strong because one environment (desert i think) could spawn criticals. Help me out here vets!

Sentry-bombing: before his nerf, world rupture only cost 7 green ap, and each time did damage and less self damage. Sacrifice inflicted less self damage and created a stronger strike tile. The typical sentry bomb strategy was to use hood with 5 black covers, +3 green/black ap, +3 all ap (at the time you could boost up to +3!). Make 1 green match, 1 yellow match, and 1 black match. Cast world rupture, wait 1 turn. Cast sacrifice, then cast hood black to detonate all CD tiles. Done properly this could do about 10.5k aoe damage at a time when no one had more health than 3* hulk (until dino came out at least). And it only took about 30 seconds. Shield hopping was interesting.

Thorverine - at release 4*Thor's red did more damage, and her blue stunned for 4 rounds and spawned 12 (!!!) charged tiles. Blue-into-red could one-shot anything in the game. From september 2014 through April 2015 Xfw was a beast. His green did 3400 damage (+ tile damage) for 8 ap. That was an awesome ratio at the time, and could typically 1 shot hood, who was a premier PvP character via sentry bombing). His black was the best power in the game. It did a little less damage per tile (about 500-ish), BUT it destroyed 10 of the ai's strongest ap AND every tile destroyed generated ap (!!). So assume the ai's strongest color was green. You would wait until there was a decent amount of green on the board, cast black, and then use the resulting green ap to cast xforce a few times and clean up the mess. Devastating. Used together Thorverine covered 5/6 colors, had very high health, and were incredibly fast.

Demolira

Jarvind wrote:

For the scrubby noobscrubs like me who are just now approaching their 365-day mark, an explanation of these teams would be cool too. I've heard tales of "Thorverine" and "environment tiles" but I've never actually seen a thorough explanation of why these characters' old incarnations were so great. The stuff I see about X-Force Wolverine varies wildly - at one point I saw someone claiming that his black did more damage than it does now, gained AP, and also drained enemy AP or something equally ludicrous.

Also - 2 AP abilities were a thing? Holy nutballs.

There were quite a few 2 ap abilities:

Ragnarok - Thunderclap was 2 ap, made 5 green tiles Spiderman - stun was 2 ap, could last up to 5 turns Classic Magneto - 2 red ap, blew up 5 random tiles. Also, his blue was 5 ap, and placed 2 blue tiles

After X-Force Wolverine was fixed from his pretty terrible initial state, Surgical Strike did 500+ dmg per tile, gave you AP for each tile destroyed, and drained 10 ap from the enemy.

Also, back in the dawn of time, 2 star Wolverine and Thor had to be nerfed: viewtopic.php?style=1&f=13&t=2636

Vhailorx

Phumade wrote:

Fun topic. The only things I would add is

1. Meta wise, you should mention OBW. While she was never the insta team killer, she dominated the entire state of the game until true healing. The only question in that day and age was who else works with OBW.
2. Hood also could be mentioned here. In that timeframe, Hood was the only character that dictated you had to bring a hood to nullify him.

Minor Meta teams that deserve honorable mention.

Hulk bombing
winfinte 2.0 with mystique
2* wolverine and thor. I think that was the original thorverine combo. (before my time)

For a certain slice of the player base.
Ares/Storm/OBW was the most devastating and cringe inducing team.

Obw is in there! (with Punisher). But yeah, I didn't touch on true healing directly.

Hood is definitely a key part of sentry bombing, but he was never dominant in his own. Thorverine could drop him on round 2 using boosts and xforce, so after the sentry nerf he was nice but never essential.

And i didn't mention hulk bombing or stormneto because, while very useful teams for transitioners, they were never the best possible team.

Demolira

Vhailorx wrote:

Partial glossary:

Evironmental tiles: you will have to find someone older than me to get a detailed explanation, but these tiles existed before teamups. Different nodes had different envrionments (desert, forest, etc) that each had unique effects. As I recall, obw and punisher were especially strong because one environment (desert i think) could spawn criticals. Help me out here vets!

I think it was that OBW and Punisher got more out of Environment tiles, but my memory is a bit fuzzy there.

Imagine instead of teamups, each background in a fight provided two abilities. Collecting environment tiles let you use them. Most notably, the jungle background was something bonkers like 6 environment AP gave 5 to all AP at the cost of 100 HP.

The original Hot Dog Stand was a city environment ability, which healed your team for about 50 HP.

Kavel

Rags & CStorm was the first meta team and probably the most OP ever in the game as the mechanics stood back then. Rags' red, if maxed, only cost 2 red AP and generated like 5 or 6 green. All power-ups were purchasable with ISO and gave 3 AP instead of the current limit of 2. So starting a match with a +3 Red/Yellow and a +3 All meant you could fire Rags' red 3 times your first turn, which was certain to provide enough to cast CStorm's green once or (probably) twice, which would generate enough red to keep it going. The third character was along for the ride and served as an outlet for random AP Storm would gather via her green. HP overall was pretty low and Rags' red was already one of the heavier-hitting abilities around, so it was insanely fast. It was pretty common for your opponent to never even get a turn.

Phumade

Vhailorx wrote:

Hood is definitely a key part of sentry bombing, but he was never dominant in his own. Thorverine could drop him on round 2 using boosts and xforce, so after the sentry nerf he was nice but never essential.

I think that end of sentry bombing was also the end of the age of hood.

But Hood was pretty dominant even before Sentry. One point to mention is that Hood yellow was nerfed to end the turn after yellow cast and that twin pistols generated ap.

Many players specifically had 2 different hoods to capitalize on the two different by equally viable builds.

Whether hood rises to the level of meta defining charater, I will leave to the people who had were playing high level pvp at the time.

Personally, I was just breaking into the 2* tier. and Ares was like OML to me.

Kavel

Vhailorx wrote:

Partial glossary:

Evironmental tiles: you will have to find someone older than me to get a detailed explanation, but these tiles existed before teamups. Different nodes had different envrionments (desert, forest, etc) that each had unique effects. As I recall, obw and punisher were especially strong because one environment (desert i think) could spawn criticals. Help me out here vets!

I think the MVP of the environmental tiles was 1* Storm on the Desert board. Her yellow gathered environmental tiles, and yes I think on that board those tiles spawned 2-3 critical tiles. You could gather enough to cast it 1 or 2 times with a single cast of her yellow I think. 1* Storm has to be the only 1* that ever made it to end-game meta. Her HP was a liability, but in events where desert was available as one of the nodes you'd see her for mad dash climbing teams.

The Herald

Kavel wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Partial glossary:

Evironmental tiles: you will have to find someone older than me to get a detailed explanation, but these tiles existed before teamups. Different nodes had different envrionments (desert, forest, etc) that each had unique effects. As I recall, obw and punisher were especially strong because one environment (desert i think) could spawn criticals. Help me out here vets!

I think the MVP of the environmental tiles was 1* Storm on the Desert board. Her yellow gathered environmental tiles, and yes I think on that board those tiles spawned 2-3 critical tiles. You could gather enough to cast it 1 or 2 times with a single cast of her yellow I think. 1* Storm has to be the only 1* that ever made it to end-game meta. Her HP was a liability, but in events where desert was available as one of the nodes you'd see her for mad dash climbing teams.

It FINALLY makes sense to me know why popping team up tiles is called "Mistress of the Elements" XD

Vhailorx

Phumade wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Hood is definitely a key part of sentry bombing, but he was never dominant in his own. Thorverine could drop him on round 2 using boosts and xforce, so after the sentry nerf he was nice but never essential.

I think that end of sentry bombing was also the end of the age of hood.

But Hood was pretty dominant even before Sentry. One point to mention is that Hood yellow was nerfed to end the turn after yellow cast and that twin pistols generated ap.

Many players specifically had 2 different hoods to capitalize on the two different by equally viable builds.

Whether hood rises to the level of meta defining charater, I will leave to the people who had were playing high level pvp at the time.

Personally, I was just breaking into the 2* tier. and Ares was like OML to me.

I think hood yellow always ended the turn. But when 4* Thor was introduced they buffed the damage and took away the ap generation. They didn't want to create a quasi winfinite loop of Thor's blue and hood's yellow.

I did not mention 2* wolvie or thor, or orignal 1* storm at all. They were all very strong in the before times. 2* wolvie had watch's healing, and his green only cost 2ap to generate strikes!

Demolira

Vhailorx wrote:

I think hood yellow always ended the turn. But when 4* Thor was introduced they buffed the damage and took away the ap generation. They didn't want to created quasi winfinite loop of Thor's blue and hood's yellow.

Level 5 Twin Pistols didn't end the turn, but that part was removed when they took away the ap generation as well.

The Herald

Demolira wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

I think hood yellow always ended the turn. But when 4* Thor was introduced they buffed the damage and took away the ap generation. They didn't want to created quasi winfinite loop of Thor's blue and hood's yellow.

Level 5 Twin Pistols didn't end the turn, but that part was removed when they took away the ap generation as well.

Hood is still a monster now, only checked by being so squishy. Sounds like he used to be a full on nightmare O.o

Vhailorx

Demolira wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

I think hood yellow always ended the turn. But when 4* Thor was introduced they buffed the damage and took away the ap generation. They didn't want to created quasi winfinite loop of Thor's blue and hood's yellow.

Level 5 Twin Pistols didn't end the turn, but that part was removed when they took away the ap generation as well.

That makes sense. Lots of older powers had awesome cookies at 5 covers (e.g. gsbw green).

Demolira

Sure, at level 5. A lot of old powers were all -1 ap cost per level as well, though. Those have all been changed at this point.

Vhailorx

Demolira wrote:

Sure, at level 5. A lot of old powers were all -1 ap cost per level as well, though. Those have all been changed at this point.

Yeah decreasing ap costs had been dead design mechanic for ages. I was shocked when they used a version of it for revised IM40.

Marine8394

Sniff. Sniff when teams actually meant something, and they didn't nerf characters they created that made sense. Worked. And were worth working for. Now. Well let's have. Yeah. Now.