Character Rankings Holiday 2016 Edition - The Results

Ebolamonkey84

We had 1051 voters in this edition of the rankings. It’s a little bit lower than last time, but is still a reasonable amount.

Past character rankings:
12/2013 - the beginning
03/2014 - standard deviation edition
06/2014 - meme edition
10/2014 - theme song edition
12/2014 - MM's last stand
05/2015 - Ebola's first time
02/2016

Ranking posts in this thread:
1* - An Introduction to MPQ
2* Rankings
3* Rankings - 41 to 31
3* Rankings - 30 to 21
3* Rankings - 20 to 11
3* Rankings - Top Ten
4* Rankings - 41 to 31
4* Rankings - 30 to 21
4* Rankings - 20 to 11
4* Rankings - Top Ten
5* Rankings

Like last time, characters were rated from 1-10, with a 0 indicating that you had no opinion (a few people did not seem to realize this). The rankings will be split out by tier, but I’ll also throw the entire list together for fun. I’m going to slowly roll them out over the next week, as speculation is part of the fun. Write-ups have been submitted for most of the characters, and I’ll be pulling out the most common/interesting comments from the poll itself.

At the time of the voting, there were 115 total characters. Agent Venom and Medusa were not included as they were too new.

Schedule:
12/19: 1* and 2* revealed
12/20: 41st-11th 3* revealed
12/21: Top 10 3*, 5* revealed
12/22: 41st-11th 4* revealed
12/23: Top 10 4* revealed

115. Spider-Man (Bag-Man)
114. Yelena Belova (Dark Avengers)
113. Sentry (Dark Avengers)
112. Venom (Dark Avengers)
111. Ragnarok (Dark Avengers)
110. Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards)
109. Spider-Man (Classic)
108. Hawkeye (Classic)
107. Devil Dinosaur (Gigantic Reptile)
106. Psylocke (Classic)
105. Moonstone (Dark Avengers)
104. Colossus (Classic)
103. Steve Rogers (Captain America)
102. Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)
101. Steve Rogers (First Avenger)
100. Drax (The Destroyer)
99. Venom (Eddie Brock)
98. Elektra (Unkillable)
97. Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius)
96. Carnage (Cletus Kasady)
95. Bullseye (Dark Avengers)
94. Gwenpool (Gwen Poole)
93. Howard The Duck (Howard, A Duck)
92. Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy)
91. The Punisher (Dark Reign)
90. Squirrel Girl (Unbeatable)
89. Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy)
88. Daredevil (Man Without Fear)
87. Blade (Modern)
86. Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)
85. Vision (Android Avenger)
84. She-Hulk (Modern)
83. Human Torch (Johnny Storm)
82. Sam Wilson (Captain America)
81. Storm (Modern)
80. Captain Marvel (Modern)
79. Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel)
78. Miles Morales (Spider-Man)
77. Invisible Woman (Classic)
76. Sam Wilson (Falcon)
75. Beast (Classic)
74. War Machine (James Rhodes)
73. Bullseye (Classic)
72. The Hulk (Indestructible)
71. Mystique (Raven Darkholme)
70. Daken (Dark Avengers)
69. Nick Fury (Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
68. Spider-Man (Original)
67. Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes)
66. Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze)
65. Wolverine (X-Force)
64. The Hulk (Totally Awesome)
63. Human Torch (Classic)
62. Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff)
61. Hawkeye (Modern)
60. The Hulk (Bruce Banner)
59. Rocket & Groot (Most Wanted)
58. Luke Cage (Power Man)
57. Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)
56. Doctor Doom (Classic)
55. Storm (Mohawk)
54. The Thing (Classic)
53. Daken (Classic)
52. Silver Surfer (Skyrider)
51. Iron Man (Model 35)
50. Ant-Man (Scott Lang)
49. Kingpin (Wilson Fisk)
48. The Hood (Classic)
47. Loki (Dark Reign)
46. Kate Bishop (Hawkeye)
45. Wolverine (Astonishing X-Men)
44. Wolverine (Patch)
43. Professor X (Charles Xavier)
42. Black Widow (Modern)
41. Spider-Man (Back in Black)
40. Black Panther (T'Challa)
39. Star-Lord (Legendary Outlaw)
38. Moon Knight (Marc Spector)
37. The Punisher (MAX)
36. Quake (Daisy Johnson)
35. Nova (Sam Alexander)
34. Iron Man (Mark XLVI)
33. Blade (Daywalker)
32. X-23 (All New Wolverine)
31. Magneto (Marvel NOW!)
30. Deadpool (It's Me, Deadpool!)
29. Black Widow (Grey Suit)
28. Ares (Dark Avengers)
27. Green Goblin (Norman Osborn)
26. Thor (Modern)
25. Thor (Marvel NOW!)
24. Black Bolt (Inhuman King)
23. Steve Rogers (Super Soldier)
22. Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme)
21. Deadpool (Uncanny X-Force)
20. Thor (Goddess of Thunder)
19. Jean Grey (Phoenix)
18. Magneto (Classic)
17. Luke Cage (Hero For Hire)
16. Storm (Classic)
15. Cyclops (Classic)
14. Juggernaut (Classic)
13. Iron Man (Hulkbuster)
12. Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange)
11. Red Hulk (Thunderbolt Ross)
10. Cyclops (Uncanny X-Men)
9. Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel)
8. Black Widow (Original)
7. Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)
6. Peggy Carter (Captain America)
5. Jean Grey (All New X-Men)
4. Wolverine (Old Man Logan)
3. Iceman (All New X-Men)
2. Iron Fist (Immortal Weapon)
1. Iron Man (Model 40)

Missing Write ups:
2* Cap
3* Spidey
3* Psylocke
3* Beast
3* Quicksilver
3* Mags
3* Cyclops
5* Hulk
5* BW
5* SS
5* BSSM
5* Strange
5* PHX
5* OML
4* Wasp
Venom (Eddie Brock)
Elektra (Unkillable)
Carnage (Cletus Kasady)
Gwenpool (Gwen Poole)
4* Spider Woman
WS
XFW
Chulk
Cage
antman
KP
KB
MK

rc35

Thanks again for all your work on this, Ebolamonkey84.
(and the suspense is killing me! )

Ebolamonkey84

With the increased availability of 2 star covers, 1 stars are quickly left behind by most players. If there wasn't a DDQ node, many players would not keep any of them on their roster. They are good for learning the game, though, and introduce you to most of the core gameplay elements of MPQ.


8. Yelena Belova (Dark Avengers), even

Average score: 1.8108, +0.1599

Survey Comments

Analysis
Only people with a Pokemon mentality should have Yelena on their rosters. She is outclassed by Modern Black Widow, and has less TU potential.

Purple: Costs 3 more than MBW purple at 5 covers, but only adds 275 damage. Time would be better spent actually gathering the AP for other powers instead of focusing on purple.
Black: It can be super annoying when she uses this on you in PVE, but is unlikely to be used by the player due to its AP cost. There are better crit generators in this tier.

Pros

• She is the second easiest Dark Avenger that you will face, so it is nice when she is in a PVE node.
• Her black can overwrite Ultron bombs and invisibility tiles.

Cons

• AP costs are way too expensive.
• Low HP.
• You win her covers after you already have an established roster of 1*.

Recommended build: 5/5, if you have her at all
Good partners: Don't bother

7. Venom (Dark Avengers), even

Average score: 2.8456, -0.9679

Analysis
Write up by Ebolamonkey84
The developers must really hate Venom. He has been nerfed three times since the game was released. This is a good thing for players, as he is typically only seen as an enemy in PVE. I honestly think he is worse than Yelena. Like most other 1* Dark Avengers, he is not worth rostering, as he will be locked out often and you only need 3-4 1* to get you through the transition to 2*.

Black: Does damage. Does lots of damage if you somehow manage to get 8 web tiles on the board. Not so good.
Purple: Hot garbage. Can’t even stun without a web tile on the board until 5 covers, and doesn’t team stun anymore.

Pros:

• High health

Cons:

• Black is expensive, and now, not even capable of the OHKO.
• Stun barely stuns at low covers.

Recommended build: 5/5, or in the trash bin next to Yelena

Good partners: Iron Man (Model 35), Spider-Man (Original)

6. Hawkeye (Classic), +1

Average score: 3.6406, -0.1195

Survey Comments

Positive:
1* characters have very little ability to affect the board, Hawkeye is a welcome exception. little_boat

Mixed:
Amazing board control but not useful once past 1* phase. - stochasticism
Great for board control against goons, too squishy to make it through to 2* transition. Only two abilities gives him a lower level cap which doesn't help. - CNash

Negative:
just a mess - Anonymouse

****:
A useless tit - Mhaaa french

Analysis
Write up by Mortalo

Hawkeye was one of my favorites in 1* land. He has cool direct board control that can be quite appealing to a new players, giving some additional match options on the board. After all, that's why we play this game, right? To match tiles?

Purple: Placing a Critical tile wherever you want is a great thing (though it takes 5 covers), not only to get AP you want but also to get rid of some annoying enemy tiles.
Red: Taking down entire row can come in handy while dealing with enemy special tiles. Rarely, it can be used to get a nice match or future one. Some damage ain't bad too.

Pros

• Direct board control
• Cheap skills

Cons

• Not much health

Recommended build: 5/5
Good partners: Storm and IM35

5. Storm (Modern), even

Average score: 5.3229, -0.4455

Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Yet another character that has suffered behind updates, Storm was once an old school Winfinite back in the day of environment tiles. Still, her powers provide excellent support and versatility. A lack of health and offense punch prevent her from being ranked higher.

Green: Good board shake plus AP generation make this an excellent power in the tier.
Yellow: TU powers are of dubious value at this tier, but getting those tiles off the board can be useful.
Black: Decent attrition damage. Handy for clogging up the board.

Pros:

• Excellent green power
• Best black power in the tier

Cons:

• Squishy
• Lacks direct offense

Recommended build: 5/3/5

Good partners: Iron Man (Model 35), Spider-Man (Original)

4. Spider-Man (Original), even

Average score: 5.7479, -0.1331

Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Spidey is dope. Spidey's 1* incarnation is also dope. Isn't he just the only Spider-verse character that actually feels like a Spider-character? Agile, versatile, and fun to play. Just as Spider-Man ought to be.

Although red isn't dope, it is respectable, and better still with the web tiles he helpfully provides via his other powers. His blue is pretty dope, though. Who can say no to stuns for 6AP? Purple is really where the dopeness drops, though. Crits and crits and crits that make the girlies say “Hey!” and the homeys say “Ho!” He's so dope, his purple TU is useful all the way up in 5* land. His art is dope, too. Sweat that old school feel, my friends. No squashed-face-McFarlane looks for Petey.

Spidey has two pretty big problems, though. Both of which are more or less insurmountable. First, he's a 1* character. That pretty much speaks for itself. Second, he's not MBW. If you love MPQ, you should start petitioning to swap 1* and 3* Spidey in whole. But that's just the author's bias.

At the same tier, match him with Storm and Juggernaut for an excellent balance of coverage, straight damage, and utility. Higher up the food chain, just send out those purple TU's.

Pros: Fast powers, cheap stun, crits out the wazoo.
Cons: Not MBW.
Pairs with: Storm, Juggernaut

3. Iron Man (Model 35), -1

Average score: 6.3667, +0.1295

Survey Comments
Positive:
Mainstay of a 1* Roster. Nice defense, good attack and AoE. - Dragon Nexus
Only Juggernaut is better in this tier - Ronin-san

Negative:
An all-around average character. Drops off quickly when you transition into 2 star land though. - Brian0716

Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Perhaps the most instantly recognizable version of Iron Man and everyone's first character in the game. A solid all-rounder who will be the linchpin of your team until your 2* roster gets up to speed. Iron Man provides the main offense for the classic 1* triumvirate of IM/BW/Storm.

Red: Good damage, not too expensive.
Yellow: Okay damage for cheap, only source of protect tiles for 1*.
Blue: Way too pricey, but fun if you can get it off.

Pros:

• Dependable offense
• Good health

Cons:

• Unremarkable

Recommended build: 5/5/3

Good partners: Storm (Modern), Black Widow (Modern)

2. Black Widow (Modern), +1

Average score: 6.8147, +0.7435

Survey Comments
Positive:
Current TU winner of "Best Stun in the Game" - IReallyHatePVP
Best TU in the game - Almost everyone
Only character I have 5 of on my roster..... - Fightmaster

Negative:
No fire power. Stuns only go so far - Anonymous
Probably the worst. 2, 3 star much more useful - DanDroid

Analysis
Write up by IamTheBiggs


Analysis
Modern Black Widow has been a staple since the beginning of the game, and remains so. While it is possible to get by without her once a player has progressed beyond the game, her blue power maintains her position in the upper echelon of requested Team -Ups.

Purple: A good siphon of enemy AP at the earliest stages of the game, it is not the most cost effective.
Blue: Arguably the best stun power in the game at ANY tier, this power is oft requested for Team-Ups by alliance mates.

Pros

• A solid character at the one star game and easy to max out as she only has the two powers.
• Best stun ability in the game.

Cons

• AP costs for the purple ability make it too expensive for the desired full effect.

Recommended build: 5/5 (go all the way or just forget it)
Good partners: Any toon outside of Yelena. Best served as a Team-Up.

1. Juggernaut (Classic), even

Average score: 8.2961, +0.0549

Analysis
Write up by IamTheBiggs



Analysis
Juggernaut maintains his position as the most useful toon in the game. His powers are cheap, useful, and effective. With a healthy amount of hit points, he is hands-down the best tank for the game.

Green: At 6 AP, this is a great board-shaker, even if the damage is marginal compared to IM 35’s red.
Red: While giving Juggy a bit of damage himself, this is a small tradeoff for the superior damage it deals (as far as toons are concerned) and is a steal for only 6 AP.

Pros

• Easily the best toon in the game, worthy of remaining on a player’s roster well after the phase.
• Cheap and effective powers are also great for Team-Ups.

Cons

• Doesn’t carry over well into the game.
• Only two powers leaves a player wanting more.

Recommended build: 5/5
Good partners: Works great going solo for the Deadpool Daily Quest node, or pair him with Luke Cage or Kamala Kahn during the “Balance of Power” midseason event.

Next: 2* Rankings

Ebolamonkey84

The 1 to 2* transition is relatively quick due to the availability of 2* covers and the lower number of characters. Most people at the 2* level are restricted from advancement by lack of covers, not lack of ISO. You may be tempted to buy standard tokens if you have an ISO surplus to speed up your cover acquisition rate. DO NOT DO THIS.

The champion system has renewed interest in the 2* tier for veterans. A maxed champion 2* sells for 65,000 ISO and 125 HP, while it only costs ~74k ISO to re-level and champ a new 2*. The XP, HP, tokens, 3* covers, and CP from champ levels make it worthwhile to farm all of the 2* as much as possible.



14.Spider-Man (Bag-Man), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by IamTheBiggs


It comes as no surprise to many that Bagman remains at the lowest rating for the roster. Bagman has become such a joke, his status as possibly the worst toon in the game is the butt of jokes all over the forums as well as the game itself. In fact, the devs have long since removed him from tokens and as prizes for anything other than as random PvP awards.

Purple: An expensive power that merely swaps two chosen tiles and turns them into tiles -there are better ways to get web tiles on the board.
Blue: Creates locked tiles that serve no real purpose other than to annoy the player.
Yellow: Surprisingly has some use in increasing friendly timers.

Pros

• Limited use as a Team-Up for his yellow ability.

Cons

• Not worth the to open the slot in the player’s roster.
• Powers are somewhat pricey and ineffective.

Recommended build: 0/0 (For the most part, why bother?)
Good partners: Try his yellow power as a Team-Up (but ONLY as a Team-Up) with Luke Cage, Iceman, or possibly the new Medusa character.

13.Moonstone (Dark Avengers), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Roland113
Moonstone is a niche character, but up against a slew of PVE goons or a special tile specialist, she can quickly turn the tide of the match in your favor.

Purple: Warps a random tile to a place of your choosing or does damage if there aren't any special tiles. Unpredictability is the name of the game here, though there are ways to mitigate this. Keep your purple at 3 which means you can only teleport a purple, black, red or yellow tile. This is going to cut down on your choices, but increase the chance of making a match when it does fall.
Red: Nuke! Ten red tiles on the board nets you about 3500 in damage. In two star land, this can end the game.
Black: Her best ability. Troubled with Muscle dropping 600 point strike tiles, make them yours.

PVE: She is horribly underrated, as a PVE character, her purple can destroy the baddie's countdown tiles while the black steals anything that makes it through.
PVP: Unfortunately, her purple is useless when left in the hands of the AI. It's also cheap enough that you can't really pare her with any other purple users as the AI will continually waste your purple AP on her. The only saving grace is that the AI plays her black annoyingly well.

Pros: -Special Tile theft, - Decent Red Nuke, - Good HP, -
Cons: - Unpredictability of Purple

Recommended Build: 3/5/5

Good Team Mates:

Blade - The combination of Blade and Moonstone puts a premium on keeping your red tiles out but when done right it can be a huge game changer. You could pair these two with Beast for a rainbow or Doom to continually generate black for Moonstone.

Cap (2 star) & Bullseye (2 star) - This is a two star team that is all about board control, all three characters are going to continually manipulate the board to your advantage.

12.Steve Rogers (Captain America), even
Survey Comments
Analysis

11.Bullseye (Dark Avengers Hawkeye), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Mortalo

He is that annoying PvE guy that makes purple protect tiles. You will hate him, thus will
roster him. You'll get some huge board control in expensive skills and passive protect tiles
for your PvP needs.

Purple: Passive protect tile generation is always welcome. It will save you many health packs.
Black: Two critical tiles wherever you want! You will never use this skill unless you will 5-
cover it. Yes it's pricey, but what else you want to do while facing Kaecilious?
Green: Next good skill to do some matches. And some damage as well. You will find that it is
not overpriced for all the good it can provide. Did I mentioned Kaecilious yet?

Pros
Pasiive protect tiles
Board control
Kaecilious killer

Cons
Expensive skills

Recommended build: 3/5/5 (5/5/3 for ultimate protection)
Good partners: Wolverine (Astonishing X-Men) + whatever featured 3* in PvP

10. Human Torch (Johnny Storm), -1
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by dbfclark
Mini-Torch still does the best single-target damage on red at the 2* level; this just isn’t that useful relative to his very squishy HP. With three superior choices for red and green in the tier, his black would have to be differentiating. It *is* probably the best in the tier; it’s simply not good enough to lift him higher.

It’s also worth noting that he generates the only attack tiles at this level and with his green you can even triple-dip on strike tiles, making Daken a good partner, but this combo lacks the strength to really contend.

Pros: A good black ability in the tier is good news.
Cons: Very squishy. Draining off-colors is not cool. Being a less-good r/g character in the 2* tier isn’t great.

Red: After the refund, you’re doing 276/AP, which is the most of any single-target power in the tier.
Black: The attack tiles can be good, but the AP penalty boxes in your colors somewhat; also, since it doesn’t overwrite special tiles or team-ups, you need to be careful about when to fire to get maximum output.
Green: Slower than it looks, but can do a ton of damage if you get it going.

Recommended build: 5/*/* — max the red, the rest is a choice
Good partners: Daken for strike tile synergy

9. Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel), +1
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Mortalo
You find Bullseye annoying? Bring in Captain Marvel! Beside that, she, while not really making
one big punch, can be found quite useful in many situations.

Red: Not big damage, but destruction of protect tiles, which can be very helpful.
Black: Best black in 2* land? Yes it is. Good AoE damage, though it needs to launch that
cooldown tile to deal the 2nd half of damage.
Yellow: Generate some team-up tiles. You don't really use it to generate some TU AP, but to
shake the board with some matches and hopefully destroy some enemy tiles (you will be
surprised how often that will come true).

Pros
Tanky
Protect tile destruction
Universal
Cheap skills

Cons
Not much punch

Recommended build: 5/5/3
Good partners: Black Widow (Original) + Storm (Classic), Magneto (Classic)

8.Daken (Dark Avengers), -1
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Punisher5784
Daken is my most favorite 2* in the game.. yes above OBW and Ares.. why? Because Daken has true heal.. very good true heal. Daken helped me reach 3* land. Daken helped me save over healthpacks to the point I accumulated over 100 of them when I first started playing. He heals 5% every turn there are at least 6-7 blue tiles on the board. Therefore he heals pretty fast. Not just in match but out of match too. If the enemy is about to unleash a huge damage ability, I ensure Daken is in front to absorb it. He will either heal back after a few turns or if I stop playing for a little bit, he will be back at full health quick.

His abilities are also extremely useful. His purple passive gives you a strike tile every time you match green which is awesome in 2* land because all the heavy hitters use green (e.g. Ares, Thor). His blue, Chemical Reaction, removes the strikes and changes blue to green tiles. I often use his blue as a finisher so he is constantly healing. If you use his blue, you are losing strikes and could potentially start losing health. I also use his blue if I need to match red tiles, so he can make use of his blue before matching the red strikes. I’ll also use his blue if I want to make more strike tiles (e.g. 2* Wolverine’s green). Overall he is a solid 2* character.

Is his 3* version better? Yes absolutely, but obviously his 2* is much easier to obtain. Unfortunately once you max his 3* version you will never use his 2* except for DDQ. Even when boosted, his 3* is still better which makes me sad. I use his 2* at 3/5/5 while his 3* you will want at 5/5/3.. the extra strike tile strength at 5 covers for 2* Daken is small compared to the extra damage you can do with his blue, while 3* Daken you need purple at 5 to generate double strike tiles as the damage on his blue at 5 covers is small, which is interesting. Nonetheless, if you are just starting MPQ and you want to play both PVP/PVE for long periods of time then Daken is your guy!

7. Hawkeye (Modern), +1
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Mortalo


Surprisingly, 2* Hawkeye has nothing to do with his 1* version. Now we have Countdown tile
specialists, which can threw off some new players, 'cause who wants to wait for a power to do
stuff. His blue or red? Only when you don't have anyone else with that skills on your team
(which can happen often early on or in heroics). It's his purple when he shines. Getting some
damage after a 5-match? Even if you have to wait 2 turns?

Blue: Stun and some enemy AP reduction can be useful.
Red: Wait 2 turns to deal damage sounds not appealing, but it's AoE and solid, though you want
it at 5 covers.
Purple: That's the only reason you even think about using this guy. Give him someone who can
generate some tiles for higher chance of 5-matches and you'll see some wounds on your enemies.

Pros
Belated passive damage on 5-matches

Cons
Too much waiting
His purple uses purple tiles and many skills that add tiles cost purple

Recommended build: 3/5/5
Good partners: Bullseye (Dark Avengers), Magneto (Marvel NOW!), Thor (Marvel NOW!)

6.Wolverine (Astonishing X-Men), even/b]
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Punisher5784
Ah poor 2* Wolvie, most new players will use Thor or Ares for the Y/R/G colors. It’s true Ares and Thor’s powers are arguably better. By himself, Wolverine is just OK, However when paired with others such as 2* OBW and Daken, Wolverine is great. His red has high damage (over 3000 max) for 12 red AP. Yes the AP is high but you need to gather red AP to make his green stronger. For only 6 green AP, Wolvie does small damage plus creates 1 red strike tile for every 3 red AP, so if you have 12 red AP that’s four strike tiles. This is where his partners come useful. OBW’s espionage double dips in damage with his strike tiles. Daken can use his blue more often with Wolvie’s strike tiles as well. These three can take down some nasty teams when you start playing MPQ and are trying to enter 3* land.

The other great part about Wolverine is his true healing. While his yellow is nowhere near as good as 3* Wolverine (Patch), it is still useful enough to save health packs. Him and Daken will save you much needed health packs to consistently keep playing in PVP/PVE while you are building your roster. I rode 2* Wolv and Daken until I finally acquired 3* Wolv and Daken then used them two with Loki. Sadly, like Daken, once you acquire 3* Wolverine (or most other 3* characters), you’ll only use 2* Wolverine for DDQ. His time is limited, but necessary for starting MPQ.

5.Magneto (Marvel NOW!), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by dbfclark
The victim of a fairly major nerf since his (long in the past) last write up, he’s still useful as a blue and red generator so can still see higher level play with the right teams, but the old Stormneto combo took a major hit. Purple is his key power, and being one of the few characters who can place generated tiles means he fits with the match-5 passive crew beyond just being a battery. The problem is just what he has to power: at the 2* level, fueling Storm is substantially less valuable with 3 tiles than the old 5, and his red is fine rather than great; at the 3* level the best offensive blue powers are on Lazy Cap, who can use acceleration but only once in the match, and cMags, who obviously can’t be played with his 2* cousin; and at the 4* level or above he’s far too squishy to compete.

Pros: has a surprising amount of HP for a 2* since the (long-ago) boost. one of the first combo pieces you get. If championed, gives cMags covers.
Cons: you need to bring a real blue user, as his blue is useless.

Blue: Useless. Low damage and you can’t place the countdown tile so you can’t choose what you blow up. Even if you max it and get to clear the whole board, it can be easily matched away.
Purple: One of the only abilities which can convert a tile of your choosing to a color. Nerfed but still ok.
Red: Does good damage if it doesn’t get matched and keeping the 18 expected AP is a great bonus. The only problem is that it costs 14 and generates a countdown tile, meaning that you’ll rarely fire it and only sometimes see the effect if you do. You can play it at 4, which is more affordable but much weaker.

Recommended build: 3/5/5 or 4/5/4 — the last level of red makes the power cost a whole extra match, which you may or may not want.
Good partners: The old classic is cStorm/mHawkeye, for the battery outlet and match-5 potential

4.Ares (Dark Avengers), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by fanghoul
Ares is one of those characters who initially looks terribly on paper. His green gives the enemy team AP, his yellow also hurts himself, and his red only really shines when he's really hurt. In practice though, these powers can work well together to quickly end threats to your team. At 230 damage per AP point spent, Onslaught, his green power, has the ability to frequently one-shot kill characters in 2* and even 3* land. If that character also happens to be the only one capable of using green AP, or the last character standing, then you've managed to gain all the benefit with none of the cost.

His yellow power, Sunder, deals a good amount of damage for the AP at this level. The self damage is annoying, but when this power reaches the maximum number of covers, it will restore almost as much HP after 2 turns as you lose using it. In addition, the little second kick of damage can be useful, and amplified with strike tiles. It's tricky to figure out how to make sure that count down tile will survive, but it's not such a large amount of self-damage that you can't continue to use Ares even if it does get matched away from time to time. The biggest downside to this power is that you shouldn't generally use it to finish a battle.

Rampage, his red power, is his weakest power. In dire situations, it can save your life, and in a pinch, you can use Sunder to deliberately damage Ares to get to the higher damage available to this AoE.

Ares is one of the more valuable 2* character in PvP, as his bursts of damage can help end fights quickly, and he's annoying to fight on the defense. His tendency to hurt himself matters less when he'll heal before each fight, and his big bursts of damage can cost your opponent health packs they don't want to spend.

Pros
• Very high single target damage
• Good for early PvP

Cons
• All powers have odd drawbacks to work around
• Complete color crossover with 2* Thor and Wolverine, who are also good characters at this level

Recommended build: 4/4/5. His red is poor, but the benefits of having 5 covers in green are trivial.

Good partners: Daken has his opposite color scheme, and provides strike tiles. 2* Black widow can provide some burst healing to keep him going, and steal additional AP to power his attacks.

3.Thor (Marvel NOW!), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by dbfclark
The classic combo — red fuels yellow fuels green, which is a massive AOE with its damage tilted to do extra damage to one character you need to eliminate — is a mainstay on the tier. Three big damage abilities is also great. DDQ means he probably gets regular use even after transitioning to 3*s.

Pros: Doesn’t need a perfect partner. Does lots of damage. Has lots of health.
Cons: Red is underpowered. Kind of slow.

Red: Only converts three tiles even at level 5 and does low damage/ap. Gives you something to do with red, though.
Yellow: Generating 9 green tiles is more or less the premier green generator in the game, and you still get to do damage. Good.
Green: For AOE, this is the second best power level on the tier for damage/ap and it gives you the ability to kill a selected enemy, so suffers less after you’ve killed a few. And he powers it himself. Good to great.

Recommended build: 3/5/5. Red is bad.
Good partners: Thor’s self-sufficiency is a big part of the appeal — just use good characters with good powers on colors other than yellow and green.

2.Storm (Classic), even
Survey Comments
Analysis
Write up by Mortalo

Hail to the 2* Queen. She IS the strongest 2* character. Period. You will love her. She will
be on your Under the Sea teams. She will be on your Big Enchilada teams. And then she will
fade away because of no health.

Green: It needs 5 covers or you just won't use it. At 5 it's one tile destroyed (dealing
damage and generating AP) for each green AP you have. Bring me wave nodes, hoard some green AP
and feel free to launch it even 3 times in a row. And then lay a waste to your enemies, 'cause
you just got 60+ AP.
Blue: Best skill in the game. Deal big AoE damage and long stun selected enemy? No wonder she
was worshiped as a weather goddess. You can't go wrong here.
Yellow: Now, that's tricky. Early on your adventure this skill will be triggered frequently
but deal little damage. When deadly, you won't be getting hit for so much often. And usually
you don't won't to be too low on health 'cause that's risky. But deadly.

Pros
So much damage
So much stun
So much AP generation

Cons
Not much health
So much risk

Recommended build: 5/5/3
Good partners: Magneto (Marvel NOW!) + anyone with black, Black Widow (Original) + Captain

Marvel (Ms. Marvel) = my favorite Big Enchilada 2* team

1.Black Widow (Original), even
Survey Comments

Analysis
Write up by carrion pigeons

The consensus best 2*, getting 2* Black Widow to champion status is going to be one of the first big things a new player will want to do. She holds up very well throughout the 3* tier, although her low hit points will become the biggest reason why she gets dropped from regular use as your roster advances.

Aggressive Recon is one of the best AP steal abilities in the game. If you cover it too much it will get too expensive to use effectively, so keep it on 3 covers after you get her to champ status.

Anti-Gravity Device is decent for sustainability in PvP for very early levels of play, but where it really shines is in Story Mode, where suddenly countdown tiles just stop mattering. It is reasonable to bring OBW to all-goon fights 200 levels above her max, assuming you're willing to spend the extra time babysitting her health.

Espionage is great. It's basically a free hefty permanent strike tile on the board that only works for her and can't be removed. The extra AP steal isn't a joke either, especially since it can be used to generate purple to fuel Aggressive Recon. You can try to set up purple matches for opponents for the express purpose of stealing that AP back and accelerating. It's great.

As you level your roster, you have to get creative to find ways to let her tank her colors without getting hit too much. Characters which cause large cascades are pretty good at this. 2* Magneto, any Thor, a low-ish level Scarlet Witch, or 3* Cap are good pairings. Since all her strengths are played up so strongly in DDQ, every roster should have a place for her.

Ebolamonkey84

41. Sentry (Dark Avengers)

Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Long, long ago, in a time when 3* characters ruled the land, there was a thing called Sentry Bombing. Sentry Bombing was so good, you couldn't even smell victory for all the people who would be bombing your score into the basement...unless of course you were bombing as well. So they crippled Sentry. Crippled him but good. Now he's barely good enough to even consider champing. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Sentry's green power, World Rupture, used to be the linchpin of Sentry Bombing. And it still does the job, kinda...sorta...a lot less damage after the nerf has left it feeling pretty unimpressive. The yellow Sacrifice power also doesn't quite hit as hard as it used to, but is still a strong ability if you can keep that strike tile on the board. Back in the day, Supernova used to be the easy 3 of Sentry's abilities, but now the tables have turned and it's perhaps the only thing that keeps Sentry from being utterly useless. If you're willing to sacrifice (irony) your team for a win, blasting a board heavy in red can win you victory pretty quickly.

The thing about Sentry now is that two of his three powers don't hit very hard, and at the same time damage your own team way more than they're worth. Boosted up, his red is a very dangerous ability, but will cost you in health packs very quickly. You'll want another strong strike tile generator to make green worth it and it still requires a lot of babysitting. Not really a value proposition.

If you find yourself forced to use Sentry, try using...two other good characters. Seriously, he sucks. Maybe try racing to red as fast as possible if you're looking for fast matches.

Pros: Gorgeous blond hair rivals Thor. Also red can hit hard, I guess.
Cons: Sucks. (Fine, if you want exposition: Damages your team with every power for questionable payoff.)
Pairs with: Good characters.

40. Ragnarok (Dark Avengers)

Analysis
Write up by hopper1979
Let’s face it we all know what characters are going to be in the bottom 5, Ragnarok, Sentry, Vision, Psylocke and Doctor Octopus. Spider Man might find his way into this list, not because he is horrible, but because some of us have been around long enough to remember how good he was before the change in healing occurred. I will argue Ragnarok gests unfairly rated for the for the same reason. Some of us are lost in the past and remember the days when Ragnarok was a common as Old Man Logan, Iceman and Hulkbuster. In the attempt to give all characters 3 attacks they took a very solid build and screwed it all up.

What made Ragnarok good was his mix of speed and power, none of his attacks we overpowered but because they were so fast he could cut through a team, this speed/power combo was especially noticeable when 4’s had not been introduced. In the current version of the game he would be a solid 3 but back in the day he was broken just like Sentry or Spider Man.
So let’s talk about how he plays now, no more waxing poetic about the good old days, he does have his uses. His strength lies in his two cheap, fast powers, don’t get suckered into using Godlike Power his green AOE it does more harm than good especially for its high cost of 14. Thunderclap and Lightning Rod are both solid fast powers especially when matched with the proper teammates he also has a lot of HP so he is one of the better tanks especially when boosted.

Finally, if it was not already clear, there are better characters out there once get into the 4-star transition you will probably not use Ragnarok often but he is a niche character who has his uses and again when paired with the proper teammates is a solid addition to your roster.

If they update him one of these seasons and make his blue true healing, like with the Chulk update, I think you will see him climb very quickly up the ranks of the 3-stars, this would turn him into the best tank in 3-star land. We can only hope.
Pros

• Two quick useful attacks

• High HP

Cons
• Horrible 3rd power does not do enough damage and hurts team too much to be useful

• Lack of a good AOE makes using him very team specific.

Recommended build: 3/5/5

Essential partners: Lets face it there are not that many good combos with him but this group can be a handful. Ragnarok, Qicksilver and Kamala Khan (this team is all about speed attacks and keeping your team healed, cast Rags red and blue as much as possible green goes to quicksilver and wait for his nukes to go off.)

IM40 is another good choice and can be substituted for Kamala Khan and the blue can to his nuke when you collect enough. Magneto is also a reasonable substitute.

Bad Partners: Once you are out of the 3’s there are much better substitutes for what he does. Do not make the mistake of pairing him with 4-Thor their best powers overlap and her blue makes more charged tiles.

39. Spider-Man (Classic)
38. Psylocke (Classic)
37. Colossus (Classic)
Analysis
Write up by Roland113
Colossus is the epitome of a 3 star tank. With a hit point total second in three star land only to The Hulk and the ability to shave half of the incoming damage while protecting everyone else, Colossus remains one of the most underappreciated three star characters in the game.

Yellow - Immovable Object: Want to protect your glass cannons, how about a big lug to jump in front. This is by far Colossus' best power, combine this with his high hit points and your other characters are going to stick around for a while.

Red - Colossal Punch: Red is a good secondary color for Colossus, for maximum effectiveness you'll want to fire this off, only when he's in front. Upside, with Immovable Object, getting him in front isn't very hard. If you work it right, Colossal Punch is almost a poor man's Call the Storm in that you can target most of the damage at one enemy, but still polish off the one that you had almost down to zero, saving yourself a turn or two on the secondary character.

Black - Fastball Special: Not Colossus' best power. Honestly, this is over priced and slow to use, however, there are very rare instances that this can come in handy. The gist is that Colossus throws an ally into the air, effectively stunning the ally and preventing them from taking damage for some amount of turns (3 turns at level 3, 1 turn at level 5). If we keep in mind that Colossus' role in MPQ is to protect teammates from damage, this is a good thing. If you've got a pair of Tommy Guns coming at you, throw someone into the air, allowing them to avoid the damage. When they land, there's a bit of damage and a power goes off without using any of your AP. Can you say GSBW with back to back sniper rifles, it can happen.

PVE: Colossus shines at PvE play, try to keep an Immovable Object tile on the board at all times and just let him suck up the damage. When you need to use a health pack, just heal him and the other two are protected. One side note, if you boost him with two yellow AP, you only need two matches to get this started.

PVP: Unpredictable at best. The AI will most likely cast multiple Immovable Objects wasting yellow AP or place the countdown tile somewhere that it will get matched immediately. The AI won't know who to throw in the air for Fastball Special. The AI won't know to wait until he's in front to cast Colossal Punch. Yeah, not the best choice for PvP, better stick to PvE with this one. This is really where he gets the bad reputation from.

Pros: - Tank, Tank, Tank! He really is the T-34 of MPQ. Yellow will keep the rest of your team safe from anything but AoE hits.

Cons: - Black, 13 AP is a lot of AP for anything, let alone an unpredictable power that has a fifty fifty chance of giving you Hex Bolt over Reality Crush if you toss Scarlet Witch. Awful at PvP play, the AI has no clue how to use him.

Recommended Build: 5/5/3 or 5/3/5 depending on team mates strengths. Basically, if you team him with someone that has a good red, do a 5/3/5 build, otherwise, go 5/5/3.

Good Team Mates: Glass cannons that need protection. 2* Storm jumps to mind, The Hood, Loki or 3* Strange should also benefit from protection from Colossus. Grey Suit Black Widow is also a good teammate if you plan on using his black power. Personally, I play him with Beast (5/5/3) and Kamala Khan (5/5/3) for a team that takes almost no damage.

36. Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius)

Analysis
Write up by abominatrix
Otto Octavius is a specialized character who can be fun to play, but his main use is against characters and goons that spam the board with special tiles and countdowns. Otherwise, his powers are too expensive and don't do enough damage to be of any particular use.

Pairs well with characters who can play to his main strength, which is his black passive, which can fill the board with attack tiles, which means characters that can lay down strike tiles like 2/3* Wolverine, Daken, Blade and 3* Bullseye can give give the enemy a bad day. I find the combination of Luke Cage and Blade with Doc Ock to be extremely effective against these kinds of enemies (good attackes on 4 colors, rainbow except for red, which you don't want to match when using Blade anyway).

Green: Tries to do a number of things (stun a character, do some damage, drain some AP, strengthen a special tile), but since it does several things, it does none of them well and there are better choices in 3* land for each of them.
Black: Passive which can be extremely useful against special tile layers (like Mohawk Storm) and countdown tile layers (like all goons). Since the attack tiles are placed on black tiles, there needs to be enough unoccupied black tiles on the board to get maximum use, which can make him less effective right after Storm or Bullseye fires their special-tile laying powers, but against the slower spamming of goons can be devestating.
Blue: If used against non-tile layers, it's an extremely expensive Illusions. When used against tile layers, can be devestating. At 5 covers, it will move half the board, and at level 170 will do 1044 damage per special tile moved. This is the power you want ready when Mowhak Storm or 3* Bullseye fires off, since you can one-shot most characters in 3* land if you can catch a board with 20 special tiles. Note that this power does not effect countdown tiles, and does not do anything to boss special tiles like Ultron bombs.

Speed: Slow
Sustainability: Low
Power: Low
TU potential: Situational. Green is almost never useful, but having a blue can make a difference in the right fight.

35. The Punisher (Dark Reign)

Analysis
Write up by carrion pigeons
Punisher was one of the earlier 3*s added to the game, and hasn't aged particularly well, but he does still have uses. Specifically, when the Hulk event or boss events roll around, The Punisher is one of your best tools for dealing with them.

Molotov Cocktail is a weak aoe followed by slow, weak attack tiles. This may sound terrible, but it is cheap, so that's a plus, and it interacts pretty effectively with strike tiles.

Judgement is a very weak single target attack that places a bunch of quite strong strikes on the board. Since Punisher's abilities are largely cheap, sequencing them correctly is key: try to start with this one.

Retribution is, under normal circumstances, a truly mediocre finisher. If your opponent has more than about 10k max health, however, then it starts looking much more attractive. Against bosses with 30k-60k (or more!) health pools, Retribution looks absolutely terrifying. Unlike Deadpool's red, there is no damage cap here.

The Punisher is a fun character to use. He's fast and has a bunch of actives that do different things. At his best, he gives the opponent so many things to respond to that some of them are bound to do some damage, and that can be quite fun. He's grossly undertuned for the state the 3* tier is in now, however, so the main times you'll use him are for specialty fights. Use with Spider-Man for infinite cheap utility and total chaos on the board.

34. Squirrel Girl (Unbeatable)

Analysis
Write up by fanghoul
Squirrel Girl isn't a top tier character, but certainly has her uses. Her purple power, Nuts From Adventure, becomes more powerful with each enemy Protect, Attack, or Strike tile which can be useful for one shotting 2* Daken and 2* Bullseye, who show up far too often. Furry Friends, at 11 AP is expensive for what it is, but at rank 5 has the potential to return more AP than it uses, while also dealing thousands of points of damage at the end. The weakness of this power is of course that since it's powered by countdown tiles, they can be matched away before they have their full effect, and this is particularly likely to happen when the tiles themselves keep shaking the board every turn.

Her final power, The Bigger They Are, can be a slight pain when you encounter it on a defensive team because the protect tiles generated are relatively strong. On the offensive, this tends to be less useful, as it ends your turn, robbing you of the damage and AP of that turn's match. Possibly useful if you want to avoid making a forced bone headed move, but that doesn't come up often enough to really count.

Pros:
High damage against some of the most common and annoying characters in the game.
Furry Friends is great as long as you can protect the tiles
Cons:
Mediocre against enemies that don't generate protect/strike/attack tiles.
The Bigger They Are is generally a let down

Recommended build: 3/5/5
Good partners: Star-Lord (who benefits from countdown tiles), characters that stun (to keep the enemy from matching your furry friends away)

33. Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Analysis
Write up by Punisher5784
Most players hate her.. hell I will not tell you that I love her but when she is boosted I use her solely for her black ability. Bad Reputation requires Gamora to be your strongest character, hence why she is great when boosted. She places a yellow strike tile for every tile that bears Gamora’s symbol. These strikes are beefy for the 3* tier at 150 max (yes that’s Patch strength!) but you need 12 black AP. Who could you use? Well Iron Fist of course! IF makes the black fuel Gamora. Her strike tiles with IF’s attack tile is deadly. Also pair them with Doom to guarantee you fast black AP. None of them have Yellow powers so you will often have the most strike tiles possible.

Her red, Razor’s Edge, is low cost for low damage (1700 max) but that’s the point. You’re supposed to get her strike tiles out THEN use her Razor’s Edge multiple times! I save up red until her strike are out then I start hacking the enemy down to death.

Her green is well OK, it deals up to 1150 max AOE and stuns two random enemies for two-turns. I have seen players love her green but at 12 AP, I rather use someone else’s green. The damage is just too low, even with her strike tiles, it’s still disappointing. The random stun helps but I rather focus on gathering red and black AP over green. Because of this I have her 3/5/5 as you’ll likely have a better green user on the team. I’ve also paired her with Kamala Khan. Gamora and IF’s cheap powers give constant healing. In the rare instance these two are boosts (Class of 2015 PVP), Gamora and KK are surprisingly deadly. Should Gamora be your 3* focus for maxing and champing? No (although she gives Starlord covers!), but she’s not the worst 3* and can come in handy against some tough PVE nodes. Give her a try in DDQ’s Big Enchilada.

Notes from Ebola
Once you are past the 3* tier, you are going to want to respec her to 5/5/3. Bad reputation is worthless if she isn't tanking colors, and you can get better strikes from some of the 4* and 5* characters.

32. Daredevil (Man Without Fear)

Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Daredevil can hit hard, lock down an opponent endlessly, and counter grips of special tiles. If fun-to-play meant anything in this game, Daredevil would be one of the premiere characters across all tiers. Of course, fun-to-play means exactly zero, he's not fast enough in most cases, and let's be honest – trap tiles pretty much suck. Hence Daredevil lives somewhere in the middle of the 3* pack. He's pretty good when boosted but not quite aggressive enough to make him a top choice.

Top billing goes to Billy Club, Daredevil's blue power. One tile on the board can make a mess of enemy offense with that recurring stun. If you're slick and can juggle two or more on the board, well you've got yourself a free stunlock right there! Oh, and in case you match away that tile you can just have some of your blue AP back. How lovely! Ambush is an almost-great power, offering good bang for the buck when matched by either team. Loading a red-heavy board with those tiles is a recipe for disaster if you can keep matching them off yourself. But as mentioned before, traps kinda suck. Any opponent that generates tiles on red (or randomly, for that matter) neuters Daredevil's only offense pretty quickly. Likewise, Radar Sense is handy but suffers from a couple of issues. It's easily the weakest power and so is a no-brainer for 3 covers. It doesn't hit very hard at 3, nor removes many tiles, and is expensive to boot. Shame.

Send Daredevil into the field with 3* Cyclops and go bonkers loading the board with red traps. Throw Scarlet Witch in for the accidental blue freebies and you've got a rainbow team of significant potential.
Quicksilver also makes a handy partner who gives you an extra kick for all that blue you'll be chasing. Or for maximum irony, try Bullseye to snipe your own red matches or keep blue alive.

Pros: Blue stun is fun as hell and a potential infinite stunlock, red hits hard and very fun.
Cons: Purple is weak and costly, traps suck
Pairs with: 3* Cyclops, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Bullseye

31. Vision (Android Avenger)

Analysis
Write up by saeva
While Vision isn’t the most durable of the yellow|red|blue spectrum characters (that’s Steve Rogers) nor the most powerful (Peggy Carter and 4★ Thor both have him beat) he’s well-worth collecting early in the 3★ transition. With strong damage potential and cheap AP costs Vision goes from doubling to quintupling match damage, a factor that can make all the difference for a 3★ player looking to go further -- and that’s using his blue covers alone.

Add in the AoE damage made possible by his red covers and the protection afforded by his yellow, Vision’s a real utility character that can tank for other characters while building up AP reservoirs for teammates with larger power costs.

Health:

• @ 40: 2508
• @ 166: 9690
• @ 266: 15402

Abilities:

Blue | Added damage per match where Vision is in front until countdown tile is matched away, runs out, or is destroyed; changes the red ability so that it does AoE damage.
Red |

• Base: Deal damage and destroys 5 random tiles.
• + Blue: Deals AoE damage; doesn’t destroy any tiles
• + Yellow: Deals damage; converts 2 enemy Strike or Protect tiles to basic

Yellow | Protects player from damage while Vision is in front until countdown tile is matched away, runs out, or is destroyed; changes the red ability so that it does damage for enemy tiles. [/*]
Pros:

• All of Vision’s abilities are cheap, with the costliest - red - at only 10AP.
• Blue is a heavy hitter, adding up to 1040 damage per match, and Vision works well with Strike tile produces to include even more damage.
• Vision’s cheap abilities allow you to trigger power-dependent passives, like Kamala Khan’s burst healing, quickly and repeatedly.
• His red ability is versatile, doing normal damage, AoE damage, or removing enemy tiles depending.

Cons:

• The usefulness of Vision’s abilities require him to be in front, tanking and taking damage from the enemy team.
• This limits the characters he can easily be played with, as he needs to do the most AP damage for red, yellow, blue, and, ideally, team-up tiles.

Builds
5/5/3 is the best and most popular build, increasing the damage Vision can do without reducing the number of enemy tiles he can remove using the Red+Yellow ability, which is consistently 2 regardless of whether yellow is at 1 cover or at 5.

Partners: Because Vision needs to be able to claim at least 3 out of 4 total color + team-up tiles to be effective always double-check to make sure he does more AP damage than those you’re pairing him with and/or that he’s in center when paired with characters who do equivalent damage. Also make sure that the characters you’re pairing him with, combined, don’t overpower him in more than 1 color/team-up tile option.

For example, Black Panther will always claim yellow over Vision but not blue. If Black Panther, Vision, and Iron Fist (who doesn’t overlap any of Vision’s colors) are teamed together then, so long as Vision is in center, Vision will claim red, blue, and team-ups.

• 2★| Bullseye. Daken. Human Torch.
• 3★| Black Panther. Blade. Doctor Doom. Iron Fist. Kamala Khan. Luke Cage. Quicksilver. Scarlet Witch.
• 4★| Elektra. Jean Grey. Kingpin. Professor X. Star-Lord. Wolverine.

Especially good teams for Vision include:

Quicksilver | Vision | Scarlet Witch
Kamala Khan | Vision | Star-Lord

Note: Vision can also be used effectively with Kamala Khan and Iron Man 40, taking over to use Vision’s blue and red abilities while IM40 is temporarily stunned from his own yellow Recharge. This gains more damage per AP overall than IM40's red|blue abilities would while protecting Vision for the majority of the match.

Ebolamonkey84

30. She-Hulk (Modern)
Analysis
Write up by fanghoul
She Hulk has some good utility powers: stealing special tiles, shaking the board, destroying tiles at the bottom, where they get hard to match away, and draining enemy AP. She lacks self synergy though. For instance, her AoE destroys tiles near the bottom of the board. In practice, this tends to destroy either tiles that you want to steal or have just stolen with her Settlement ability.

Settlement only steals the 1st and 3rd tiles it effects, which often means waiting till the enemy has enough tiles out so that you can even steal 2. This can be problematic against enemies like Maggia Muscles, where what you really want is to get rid of all their strike tiles right away.

Finally, while her furious charge ability seems devastating when used against you, when used against the enemy, the effects are much harder to notice.

Pros
• Board and special tile control
• High HP
• Fast regeneration out of battle
Cons
• Only has limited AoE for damage.
• Control powers are random, and have odd limits.

Recommended build: 5/3/5
Good partners: Patch

29. Captain Marvel (Modern)
Analysis
Write up by Mortalo
Dealing with many protect tiles? Noone is prettier then Modern Captain Marvel. She can take
the punch and give it back, though again she lacks power.

Red: Getting rid of all enemy protect tiles will be useful, though not so many times. At least
it's cheap.
Black: That stun looks interesting, but you would like some more damage.
Yellow: That's who Captain Marvel is - get hit and hit back.

Pros
Tanky
Protect tile destruction
Stun with a punch

Cons
Not too heavy punch though

Recommended build: 3/5/5 (5/3/5 for protect tile destruction)
Good partners: Any group where she can tank

28. Sam Wilson (Falcon)
Analysis
Write up by fanghoul
Sam Wilson (Falcon) is a pure support character. With the combination of his Bird Strike, and Inspiration powers, it is possible for him to completely negate incoming match damage, even from a 5* character. More useful though is his ability to make strike tiles more powerful. Assuming that there are at least 3 strike tiles out, each yellow match after that increases their net bonus by close to 300 damage. This can quickly add up to lethal amounts.

His blue power, Redwing, seems like it would be more useful than it is. It will sometimes take out a vital enemy tile in a hard to reach place, but will equally likely grab an unimportant one that you would have matched away next turn anyway. Unfortunately, the power does not refresh fast enough to keep up with the rate that the enemy will generate tiles that you want to remove.

Pros:
Increases tile power.
Bird Strike is somewhat decent defense
Cons:
Blue is mostly useless
There are better and cheaper purple powers available than bird strike.
Improved tiles are always at risk of being matched away.

Recommended build: 5/4/4
Good partners: Iron Fist, Blade, or any other strike tile generator who doesn't place them on yellow tiles

27. Beast (Classic)
26. Bullseye (Classic)
Analysis
Write up by Mortalo
3* Bullseye is not making protect tiles! That's a bummer. But now he can hit you bad. He can
fuel himself. He is very tricky to play to his full potential, especially with many hard
hitting chars.

Purple: No protect tiles! Instead you can get rid of some special tiles and deal good damage.
It can target friendly tiles, which allows for self-fueling this skill.
Black: While creating strike tiles is always fun, this time it's not so easy. You need to make
sure that it's Bullsye who kills the enemy. Fortunetely he can deal some damage with his
skills, so timing it right shoudln't be that hard to pull-off.
Green: Good board control with even more damage then his 2* brother.

Pros
Good skill costs
Nice damage
Pretty board control

Cons
Same colours as Iron Fist and Loki
2 shared active colours with Kamala Khan and Grey Widow

Recommended build: 5/3/5
Good partners: Luke Cage (Hero for Hire), Magento (Classic), Spider-Man (Classic)

25. The Hulk (Indestructible)

Analysis
Write up by monsieurmojo
He's big, green, and ugly, and that's about all this Hulk has in common with his comic namesake. His optimal build has little offense, but The Hulk can be a high-health tank who provides a great green battery with good board shake. The character build requires careful balance; he can't be so over-leveled that the black damage never triggers, but can't be so under-leveled that he isn't tanking any colors, either. His recent, heavy use in the Boss Rush fiasco saw a renaissance in Hulk's use as part of a Hulkfinite/Team Green infinite-turn team.

Green: lackluster damage, but good board shake
Red: WAY overpriced for the damage, potentially costing 24 total AP, and added team damage makes this power awful
Black: the main reason you're bringing Hulk along; excellent green battery if Hulk is tanking

Pros: board shake
good green battery if tanking
Cons: requires delicate balance for tanking
really needs a better green user to take advantage of green generation
terrible red

Rec'd build: 5/3/5

Rec'd partners: any good green user
Kamala Khan (5/5/3) and MoStorm (5/5/3) = Hulkfinite (requires Hulk to be boosted, or to have better match damage than KK/Storm on Green, better match damage than MoStorm on black, and potentially better than either on blue to maximize green generation)

24. Mystique (Raven Darkholme)

Analysis
Write up by carrion pigeons
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the competitive scene, Mystique has already supplanted the great Doctor Doom as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though she has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian character in two important respects. First, her abilities are slightly cheaper; and secondly she has a panic button in the form of a stun. So don't panic.

Shapeshift has a very modest AP steal aspect to it, but mostly it's just a stun. It isn't especially cheap or particularly long, but it'll get the job done and comes with enough ancillary benefits to be worth it. Lots of fights basically require you to bring a stunner and Mystique is a fiiiine one.

Infiltration kinda sucks. Ideally you'll have a better blue active to bring along than this, otherwise you're just going to be burning blue on this and hoping it does something, which it usually doesn't. Every once in a while it will be randomly incredible and end the game in short order, though. Usually when the AI is using her.

Masterstroke is just a huge nuke. If you're in the 3* tier this one-shots basically everything. This makes her great at killing characters that try to slow the game down like Spider-Man or 2* Bullseye in PvE.

Mystique is still a combo with Quicksilver: match blues to trigger QS, use the AP to make black matches with Infiltration, then use Idle Hands to make blue matches until he does his thing. It isn't the winfinite it used to be, but it's still good and pretty fast.

23. Human Torch (Classic)

Analysis
Write up by Roland113

The Human Torch is the best 3 star character with the Red, Green Black color spectrum for pure damage. All three of his powers are formidable in their own right and when working together, he's a damage beast.

Red - Fireball - Need a good blast of damage for relatively cheap, this is a good way to go. Doing 3.5 K of damage for 8 AP points is pretty good, doing the same damage for only 6 more points the second time around is an even better deal. I personally like to hold my red AP until I get 14 AP, then fire it off twice with two minor board shakes in the process.

Black - Inferno: This is my least favorite of the three powers. At 10 Black AP, you throw 8 decent attack tiles in the center of the board. Unfortunately, firing this power off drains your blue, purple and yellow by 30%. Another downside is that there is an exact pattern to the attack tiles. If there is a team up or a special tile where the new attack tile is supposed to go, the new one just doesn't get placed and you lose it.

Green - Flame Jet: One of my favorite powers in the game. Throw out a 1 turn countdown tile that delivers damage continually as long as you continue to feed green AP to your team. One important point, don't fire this power until you've matched all of the available green matches.

PvE: He is a strong character for PvE, does a good amount of damage and can be used effectively without a lot of in depth analysis. Really you just put him out there, fire red either at 8 or at 14, fire green once you've matches all of the green that you can and avoid black until you waste as little AP as possible.

PVP: He has two problems in PvP land. The AI will randomly fire his black power draining your other powers at less than optimal times. Also, the AI doesn't understand his green power at all. You'll often have two green countdown tiles out there which reduces the effectiveness of the first one.

Pros: Good damage dealer, Green is a source of continual damage.
Cons: Tanks a lot of colors so gets a lot of damage.

Recommended Build: 5/3/5, no questions here, Black is his least effective power.

Good Team Mates: Being as he takes a lot of damage, someone that can protect him is a good way to go, try Beast with his heal or Colossus with his damage absorption. Also, I've used him to great effect on a team with 3 star Cyclops and Doctor Doom. He is redundant with Cyclops Red, though he's a little cheaper and can be used as the situation dictates. Also, with Cyclops and Doom's black, you never need to use Torch's.

22. Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff)
21. Rocket & Groot (Most Wanted)

Analysis
Write up by Roland113
I am Groot! (Rocket and Groot is a grammatical nightmare)

All jokes aside, this is a great tank of a character. All three powers are strong in their own sense, though the high hit points along with the regenerating yellow pushes this character into the top ten of the three star characters in my book.

Yellow - I Am Groot: Passive regeneration, when they are below 25% and you match a yellow, the team up tiles go away and give you health. If it's the end of a match and both teams are low on health, this power can save the day for you.

Green - Blammo, We Got Ya!: This is a great nuke / shake up combination. At level five, you can routinely get 3K in damage off along with a massive board shake.

Blue - I Got a Plan: How about powerful strike tiles. This power nets you four strike tiles at above 250 points each, that's right, for those of you playing at home, it's an additional 1K in damage per match three or power. Team this up with their Green power above and with a little luck, you're in one shot land.

PvE: This is a great character for PvE.

PvP: This is also a great character for PvP, there is very little downside. As an added bonus, a champed Rocket and Groot is going to get skipped over a lot. The chance of regeneration and a longer match may make more veteran players interested in speed skip over you in search of quicker teams.

Pros: Does a little bit of everything fairly well. Also, tanks all three colors so they can protect a stronger damage dealer.
Cons: There isn't a lot of damage here. Green is your only real choice for direct damage and many times, that's going to be used by a different character.

Recommended Build: 5/3/5 or 3/5/5. The 5/3/5 build gives you a massive heal when yellow fires off while the 3/5/5 lets you fire off the passive yellow more often for less health but more board shakes.

Good Team Mates: Thor, Ares. Rocket and Groot will tank both green and yellow for those two which means you can fire off their powers late in the game even after your team takes a lot of damage. I use Rocket and Groot a lot with 3 Thor and 3 Blade for a full rainbow and a lot of damage.

Ebolamonkey84

20. Doctor Doom (Classic)

Analysis
Write up by carrion pigeons
Doom is a tricky character to use. He has fantastic damage potential and his colors match up well to make a few interesting 3* teams, and he has a good health pool for a 3*. His weaknesses are that he does sustained damage poorly, and you can spend a whole match looking for the right damage window and just not find it.

Summon Demons is a fairly big source of damage for Doom, but at 12 AP, it's quite slow and very disruptable. Once upon a time this was why you would play the character but that's not really true anymore. It's fine if you need a black active but that's about it.

Technopathic Strike makes him into a fairly strong black battery. Since he also tanks black quite well you can bring along someone with a better black and have him hide behind Doom. At 9 mana, still kind of slow for an ability that does no damage.

Diabolical Plot is the real reason you're bringing this character along. Assuming you can set it up, Plot can be the actual biggest nuke in 3* land: 10k damage for 10 AP is very possible. That said, it isn't reliable, and it's still slow.

He's a middle of the road character, and you won't always find much reason to use him, but he can be fun. The trick to using Doom effectively is to realize he does weird things to the board, so figuring out ways to abuse that is how he gets to be useful. For example, 3* Wolverine (Patch) has Berserker Rage, which places purple enemy strikes on the board, but won't place them on friendly traps, so Doom filling the board with purple traps is perfect. Patch, Doom, 3* Spiderman is a fun and very sustainable, if slow, team, for example. Doom with Black Panther is also great, since Doom will tank both blue and black at the same level, and accelerate Rages.

19. Storm (Mohawk)

Analysis
Write up by Punisher5784
This version of Storm gets a lot of hate. Why? Probably because she is a “lazy” 1* version instead her more favorable 2* version. I was actually excited because I liked her 1* version for her Black so seeing the 3* lazy version was awesome to me. Before Iron Fist was released, I loved that she did mass damage every turn with her attack tiles. Her black, Hailstorm floods the board with attack tiles (32). Use it twice and you have the entire board filled with attack tiles.

Her main role is a support character but because her strongest color is Green and she has low health, she is often very hurt by the end of any match. Because of this I only use her against Goon nodes. This isn’t a bad thing, especially for 3* transitioners as for the longest time she was my go-to against Goons for over a year. I paired her with Rogers and OBW against goons for a full rainbow. OBW and Mohawk can potentially start a winfinity. OBW stealing purple that steals green AP from enemies (most goons use green), then Mohawk uses Lightning Strike, which causes cascades and gives you more purple.

I recommend using Mohawk’s yellow before her green. Her yellow will remove the T/U’s to clear the board for her Green to give you AP you actually want while also giving you more basic tiles for her Black to place attack tiles. Her black is especially good against Ninjas.. why? Well her black overwrites trap tiles, so whenever her Caltrops is used, her black will overwrite most of the traps. Any tile that does not have an attack tile could potentially be a trap, so just match her attack tiles until that annoying ninja is dead!

Also, she is great against boss battles such as Galactus.. what? How? I was the player that said to use her with Hulk and Cmags. Have Hulk in the front to get angry, make green, which fuels MoStorm to use her Lightning Rounds that fuels CMags for cascading glory! Her, Hulk and KK were great against Boss Rush as well for continued healing winfinity. With that said, MoStorm is niche but still very useful and you should strongly consider rostering her.

18. Daken (Classic)

Analysis
Write up by carrion pigeons
Daken is a self-healer. That makes him useful, aside from all other considerations. He is simply more sustainable than the average character. Yes, he has a ****-tier HP pool and a pile of abilities that can leave you scratching your head wondering what the design intent was, but he heals, so it's fine.

Pheremone Rage is a passive that generates strike tiles when you make green matches. This is where basically all of his damage comes from, so it's worth keeping it at 5 covers, although if you're trying to match a lot of red you might consider going down to 4 so the damage is more concentrated in fewer tiles.

Healing & Heat is the ability that makes him heal, but also the ability that hurts him if you don't keep enough blue tiles on the board. If you max it at 5 covers, the drawback still comes up fairly often but not so much that it's a big hit to how he plays. Dont worry about it too much - he still heals at an accelerated rate outside of combat.

Chemical Reaction is a cheap, smallish nuke that can grow to medium-size if you're willing to sacrifice your strikes. It make for a decent finisher, or a way to make use of strikes that are about to get matched away. Don't try to collect blue to spam it too often, though, since it will make Daken hemorrhage hit points once Heat starts triggering.

On a lucky board with a lot of blue or green, Daken can do some pretty ridiculous stuff. He pairs well with other cheap strike tile makers, and particularly with attack tile makers. Psylocke, Iron Fist, Blade, Bullseye, etc. Also, green batteries like Kamala Khan and GSBW, and tile buffers like Falcon can do great great things with Daken.

17. The Hood (Classic)


Analysis
Write up by IamTheBiggs

Analysis
Hood is arguably the best support toon in his tier, if not the entire game. What makes this so is his blue ability, which is a constant drain from the enemies’ AP and slows opponents considerably from activating their abilities. This is good because Hood does not have a lot of hit points to spare and becomes a constant target because of his drain and low health.

Black: A moderately “okay” power for simple damage, it has the added bonus of reducing the timer on friendly countdown tiles.
Blue: A constant drain on the enemies’ AP to the player’s own pool, this is one of the best powers in the game for that reason.
Yellow: Great damage and a decent board-shaker, but has the detriment of ending the turn with Hood in front -exactly where the layer does not want him.

Pros

• One of the best support characters in the game.
• Capable of decent damage and board clearing.

Cons

• “Squishy” -he does NOT have a lot of hit points.

Recommended build: 5/5/3
Good partners: Put him with Peggy Carter and the opponent may never activate their powers. There are few toons with whom Hood does not match well.[/quote]

16. Loki (Dark Reign)

Analysis
Write up by monsieurmojo
It says a lot about a character with no offensive skills and a miniscule health pool that Loki is consistently ranked as highly as he is. He is a fantastic support character with a skill set that is super annoying to play against. His black-purple-green color set also means he fits well into a variety of more offensively-minded teams, and his black skill is the best foil for Patch's enemy strike tile generation.

Black: a niche-use skill, but under the right circumstances (many enemy specials), extremely useful
Purple: super cheap, capable of generating matches and cascades
Green: Steals a lot of AP, especially against AI heroes who can't help but prioritize match-4s. Being a passive also means you can work it in with a better, offensive green power

Pros: so much utility
Cons: zero offense
super, super squishy. A real liability on defense.

rec'd build: 5/3/5 (not much cascade generation difference btw. 3 > 5 purple, but against non-special generators, 3/5/5 probably the better build)

rec'd partners: Loki has amazing synergy with, and is the classic partner of Wolverine (Patch)

15. Wolverine (Patch)

Analysis
Write up by monsieurmojo
Patch is a very faithful representation of the Wolverine character: his constant, true heal makes him very hard to kill (and saves a ton of health packs), combined with a huge single-target nuke, and a propensity to lash out at his allies. His attacks' double-edged nature, however, means he needs creative team construction to really shine. Pairing Patch with a way to mitigate enemy special tiles, and/or a self-stunner to help him tank more tiles, can lead to a truly deadly character.

Green: strong strike tiles for relatively cheap. Requires careful planning, or use as a match-ender
Red: Potentially the biggest nuke in 3* land (~16k+ if he's tanking the whole board), rivaling Doom's purple
Yellow: One of the best true healing passives in the game, worthy of the Wolverine namesake

Pros: true heal leads to amazing sustainability
Potentially massive damage, especially paired with self-stunners
Cons: Also potential for massive self-damage

Rec'd build: 3/5/5 (to maximize red nuke damage and minimize enemy strikes) or 5/3/5 (to maximize special tile generation)

Rec'd partners: The classic partner of Loki, and paired with IM40, make an awesome triumverate.
Anyone capable of stealing/eliminating enemy specials, like Jean Grey, Spider-Woman, Ant-Man, Daredevil, Dr. Strange
Daken for complete rainbow, health-pack saving grind team
Any self-stunning red generator like 3* Cyclops or IM40 for extra nuke damage

14. Black Panther (T'Challa)

Analysis
Write up by monsieurmojo
Striking a good balance between offense and utility, T'Challa works well in either a support role for his decently strong special tile generation, or on the attack with his high health and black AoE damage. His main drawback is that without his yellow strikes on the board, he doesn't deal a ton of damage, so he doesn't deal with single targets well. His black also gives 5 AP to the enemy in their strongest color, so it's best used as a match-ender.

Yellow: Strong strike tiles, potentially very strong with 12 TU requirement
Blue: decent strength, but countdown tile dependent and limited, making it unreliable
Black: Good-not-great AoE damage with a drawback

Pros: good mix between offense and utility, so he's easy to build around
high health
Cons: requires a lot of AP to really shine
black can backfire if not used as a match-ender

Rec'd build: 5/3/5 (5/5/3 with better black user for pure support role)

Rec'd partners: Good outlet for IF's black as part of Iron Panther Cage
Team Iron Man means he fits well with IM46 (only need green and purple)
Strong cheap strikes make him good with any passive damage dealer (Black Bolt, 4* Blade, Dr. Strange) or attack tile generator (Fist, Carnage)

13. Blade (Daywalker)

Analysis
Write up by _Daywalker_
While many of the best characters in the game have you chasing red AP in order to fire their most powerful abilities, 3* Blade instead rewards you for leaving red on the board. Blade's green passive ability automatically converts basic red tiles to strike tiles, and his purple creates attack tiles that base their power upon how many strike tiles you have on the board. His black power can be useful, draining the enemy's strongest color, but is most useful when that color is one that Blade or one of his teammates can actually use.

Black: A power that's easy to keep at 3 covers, where it does okay damage and creates a countdown tile that steals 2 AP of the enemy's strongest color every turn. If you turn it up to 5 covers, it does a little more damage and steals 3 AP each turn. It's doing it all for just 8 AP, so it's a decent return.
Purple: Creates wonderfully strong attack tiles that go along great with his passive strike tiles.
Green: At 3 covers, this is converting one basic red tile to a strike tile if there are more than 10 red tiles on the board. If you move it up to five, you're getting 2 strike tiles as long as there's more than 9 red tiles on the board.

Pros
His purple power, especially when strike tiles are on the board, can quickly turn a battle to your favor.
Cons
Doesn't pair well with any red users, since it's best to keep those tiles on the board to generate free strike tiles.

Recommended build: 3/5/5

Good partners: Black Panther (for more strikes with his yellow) and The Hood (for extra enemy AP stealing). Anyone else who creates strike tiles to help feed Blade's purple (Daken, Wolverine, etc.).

12. Deadpool (It's Me, Deadpool!)

Analysis
Write up by Sluggo
Pros: Red does outstanding damage for low AP; unique "Whales" ability can instantly take out almost any team (for a price)
Cons: Purple can take a while to ramp up; black ability is so-so.

Marvel's taco-loving MPQ mascot is a pretty solid character in his own right. With two effective offensive abilities and a unique instant-win button, he's someone every MPQ player will eventually want on their team.

ABILITIES: For just 6 red AP, A Little Off The Top is one of the better values in MPQ, dealing 3500 a shot against high-HP enemies. With a proper battery, you can rapidly chop high-HP target down to more manageable levels. For 14 AP, Deadpool's Whales can swipe an entire team for 4k apiece, but with enough Deadpool Points (accumulated every day you use Deadpool), you can one-shot-kill any team. His black is a little underwhelming, but will occasionally save teammates by intercepting damage.

TEAM WITH: Scarlet Witch and IM40. The former charges DP's purple, the latter his red. Need to chop some high-HP teams down in a hurry? Give Deadpool 18 red AP and he can whack everyone a few times with his red and then whale the whole team down.

BOTTOM LINE: Deadpool is far from the strongest character in the 3* tier, but when boosted he's extremely useful, and his gimmicky Whales are great when you desperately need an automatic win in a Gauntlet event or PvP. Use him daily in DDQ's "Dat Required Character" to build up his points, and you'll eventually be glad to have that safety net in your back pocket.

11. Black Widow (Grey Suit)

Analysis
Write up by monsieurmojo
One of the queens of PvE, Black Widow's expensive powers, relatively low health pool, and dumb AI usage make her somewhat of a defensive liability in PvP. In PvE, though, she's an absolute monster -- the Red Hulk of the 3* tier (without Thunderbolt's ridiculous health). She has good synergy with her purple feeding her green mega-nuke, and two of her powers are great for taking out enemy special tiles, or shaking up a bad board. Since she also fits with a few different infinite-turn teams (most notably Winfinite/Charlie's Angels), GSBW will always have a place in the MPQ meta.

Green: Insanely expensive, equally powerful
Red: too expensive for its effect, but has uses
Purple: excellent green battery, match-5/critical tile generation

Pros: Sniper Rifle is a match-ender
Terrific board shake and targeted tile destruction make her useful against many enemies, notably boss Ultron
Cons: extremely expensive powers
low health

Rec'd build: 5/3/5

Rec'd partners: any green/purple accelerator
Underleveled Professor X + Scarlet Witch + GSBW = Winfinite/Charlie's Angels
Thor (5/5/3) + MoStorm (5/3/5) + GSBW (3/5/5) is another, more easily accessible early infinite-turn team, with all powers feeding MoStorm green for massive AP generation

Mortalo

I'll send rest of my write-ups later today (hopefully )

I didn't had 1* Spidey back when I voted, but I love him in DDQ now.
Even though I don't like Ares, and I never used him much, I'm surprised that he fall quite a bit.
Also surprised that Moonstone write-up lacks anything about her beauty. How can you deny doctor Sofen?

3* Predicitons?
1. Strange
2. Iron Fist
3. Cyclops

There is too much 10s for that no.1, so it has to be your PvE god. I love to pair IF and Cyclop, their so, so strong, and I would imagine them both above 9, but Strange...

tdglory49

Mortalo wrote:

There is too much 10s for that no.1, so it has to be your PvE god. I love to pair IF and Cyclop, their so, so strong, and I would imagine them both above 9, but Strange...

Gotta be IM40 - he's usable well into the 4* tier for both PVE and PVP climbing. I'd assume he's good for the 5*s as well, but I'm not there yet...

Vhailorx

I think match damage alone renders 3*s and weak 4*s unusable in 5* land. 5*s can do north of 1.5k damage per match 3. Even a tough 3* like im40 can't withstand that sort of damage for long.

But he would be my bet for consensus best 3*. Iron fist is the only other contender.

Daredevil217

I'm essentially a 3* only player trying hard to transition into 4* land but it's slow going. I took a long hiatus from the game and came back very recently so don't know Strange. Leaving him off here's how I'd rate the other nine:

1. IM40 - Not even close to me. His attacks cost a lot but it's offset by how easy he generates AP w/ his yellow. His Red and Blue are big nukes and I just put 5 covers in whatever one I need more (usually blue). He makes you chase Yellow because it can mean game over if he gets two matches.


2. Cyclops - Cyclops is great because he has three amazing powers and like IM40 can be his own battery. His nukes are better but his battery isn't and because of that he gets two.

3. Iron Fist - He becomes less scary to me over time due to his low health and lack of direct nuke (unless you count his purple punch which I rarely see from the computer). I will usually target the rest of the top ten before I target him weirdly enough. Still that black generation is great on offense due to it being super cheap, and with the right outlet for that AP you can end matches FAST.

4. Kamala Khan / 5. Scarlet Witch
Had a tough time choosing between KK and Switch. They are so similar! Both are self sustaining batteries that can result in match 5s (moreso switch) and lead to team nukes (again Switch is better with the stun). At this point Switch has the slight advantage, but the thing that notched KK ahead for me was their third powers. I'm not a fan of Hex Bolt but free heal is awesome and makes KK versatile. She pairs well with people who fire quick abilities. Truly a nuisance if left alone.

6. Luke Cage - a free tile to protect against match damage, high health, Yellow nuke and quick hard-hitting black power. Bonus points for having every build be viable!

7. Magneto - Just an amazing character. Is very fast, provides board shake with two powers, and has the best Blue in 3* land. Often a great third character for Blue coverage either in place of IM40 or being accelerated by him.

8. Steve Rogers - Great on offense still slow on defense. I think IM40 has given this character new life. On offense he is one of the most fun characters with his overwriting shields providing nukes, stuns, board control, and protect tiles. I don't quake when I see him cued up in PVP, however he is still the king of PVE to me as he and IM40 are the core of my DDQ big enchilada battle every day.

9. Thor - Once the king but I don't see him as much cued up in PVP and when I do I'm usually happy it's not any of the other 8 on this list. Power creep has passed him by. Like Steve he's kind of slow to get rolling. Really just need to deny Yellow. On offense he's a bit better and his Yellow to Green is still great. The fact that he doesn't pair well with IM40 is probably his biggest weakness aside from speed.

Spiritclaw

Thank you for compiling this.

Mortalo

tdglory49 wrote:

Mortalo wrote:

There is too much 10s for that no.1, so it has to be your PvE god. I love to pair IF and Cyclop, their so, so strong, and I would imagine them both above 9, but Strange...

Gotta be IM40 - he's usable well into the 4* tier for both PVE and PVP climbing. I'd assume he's good for the 5*s as well, but I'm not there yet...

Yup, I forgot about him, surprisingly since I use him quite a lot recently. He can be 2nd, I agree

irwando

Thanks again for compiling this, love the data it provides. Would love if the tables could all be in the first post for a summary. I also have to say, for those of us in 4* land, the slow rollout of results isn't really exciting, just more time to wait to find out what we really want to know! Who do I champ next? Why do I have to wait for 3 whole days???

Seriously though, appreciate the effort in this. Thank you!

Ebolamonkey84

10. Thor (Modern)

Analysis
Write up by Sluggo
Pros: Self-sufficient moveset makes him a powerful standalone character.
Cons: Green take a while to build up; loses usefulness in the 4* transition.

It bums me out a little that I don't use my 3* Thor as much as I used to. When I made my 2->3* transition, he was my first 3* champ, and you could argue he's perfectly suited to that role: as a clone of 2* Thor, he synergizes well with many 2*s and is an outstanding stepping stone into the 3* tier. And I used him FOREVER to beat The Big Enchilada. But as you build your roster, it becomes harder to find good teammates for Thor in the 3* and 4* tiers, so his value declines over time.

ABILTIES: One of the best things about 3* Thor is that all his abilities compliment each other. His red does a little damage and creates some yellow; his yellow does more damage and creates lots of green for his AOE nuke, Call the Storm. This makes him a solid character to have around when your 3* roster is still developing. (You could also use his yellow as a battery for other green-AP characters, but at 12AP, Thor yellow is easily outclassed by IM40).

TEAM WITH: If you're in the 2->3* transition, Thor easily replaces his 2* counterpart in a number of useful teams. There's no color overlap between Thor and OBW, and "Thormneto" (Thor + 2* Storm + 2* Magneto) has been a MPQ staple for years.

BOTTOM LINE: While a wonderful standalone character, you could argue Thor got left behind a little in the wake of the IM40 buff. So many characters became more useful with IM40 as a battery, but Thor wasn't one of them, so he kind of stagnated in the meta while other characters got better. He's a fantastic character to have around as you make start building a 3* roster, just be prepared to cut the cord eventually.

9. Steve Rogers (Super Soldier)

Analysis
Write up by Sluggo
Pros: Ability to stun, overwrite tiles and refund AP makes him one of the best board-control characters in the game; solid single-target damage ability.
Cons: High AP cost for abilities make them slow to ramp up without help; yellow often goes ignored.

Steve Rogers was one of the 3* characters who benefitted most from the IM40 buff. Cap's moveset was strong, just cost too much AP to get going. Now, with IM40 as his primary battery, Cap offers both strong damage and board control like few characters in MPQ.

ABILTIES: Stev3 offers some of the more unique abilities in the 3* tier. His red and blue can overwrite any tile, making him a great counter against goons who flood the board with CD and special tiles. Both his red and blue refund AP when his CD tiles resolve, so once he gets rolling, he's hard to stop. And while the single-target damage from his red is solid, it's his blue stun that makes him one of the best board-control characters in the game. (His yellow protect tiles, at a cost of 19AP, will go ignored by most.)

TEAM WITH: IM40 first and foremost, followed by anyone who can generate red and/or blue. 3* Cap Marvel is one option if she tanks (and takes damage to generate red), and Cycl3ps is another option to generate red. But really, IM40's your best bet if you want to get the most out of Stev3. Kamala Khan is a popular 3* choice to round out that team, with her purple, green and self-heals.

BOTTOM LINE: Remember that crazy Enemy of the State test in June with all the endless wave nodes that awarded X-23? I was one of the 329 people who got a perfect score in that event, and it was mostly on the back of IM40 and Stev3 keeping wave after wave of goons in check. He fills a unique role in MPQ that puts him in the upper tier of 3* characters.

8. Magneto (Classic)
7. Luke Cage (Hero For Hire)

Analysis
Write up by Saeva
3★ Luke Cage is a brawler, ranging from smaller attacks to large hits before using his unbreakable skin to shield the rest of the team from damage.

Health:

• @ 40: 2508
• @ 166: 9690
• @ 266: 15402

Abilities:

Yellow | Does a single large hit combining base damage + damage per ally still left in the fight.
Red | Creates a red protect tile that regenerates itself when matched away so long as no other friendly protect tiles are on the board.
Black | Does a small amount of damage and creates a friendly countdown tile. If you fire the ability again while the countdown is still on the board he does 4x+ the damage of the original hit without destroying the countdown tile.
Pros:

• Does a good range of offensive damage at various AP costs, allowing you to hoard AP or use it in small groupings depending on your needs.
• Unlike most yellow abilities Luke’s is both an active ability and offensive, giving you additional options.
• Similarly, his red passive allows you to pair him with someone who has a strong red nuke, whether it’s any version of Thor or Deadpool, Human Torch, or Hulkbuster.

Cons:

• His yellow is costly and dependant on your other characters still having health.
• If Luke Cage’s red protect tile is matched away it does not reproduce itself until all protect tiles are gone, potentially leaving only a much weaker friendly protect on the board.

Builds 5/3/5 is the most popular build, allowing you to do the most damage while still providing a red protect tile of reasonable strength.

Partners:

Almost any character with AP needs that focus on red, blue, purple, and green will be playable with Cage. In particular, because he can do a small AP/small hit with “Jab” strike producers help. By far his best partners are Iron Fist, who generates black, and Kamala Khan, who can use the low AP Jab to burst heal.

• 2★| Black Widow. Daken. Magneto.
• 3★| Iron Fist. Kamala Khan. Magneto. Scarlet Witch. Steve Rogers.
• 4★| Iceman. Invisible Woman. Nova. Star-Lord. Winter Soldier.

6. Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange)

Analysis
Write up by Fightmaster
The first new 3* character since…Bullseye? Who was released a year and a half ago, crazy! I champed Strang3 for his PvP and cashed in my hoard for the 5* version because this guy is a PvE MONSTER!

His yellow does 1719 damage every time a goon drops a CD tile. The first 3 trivial nodes are done in less than 30 seconds each. It takes longer to view his animations than to actually make the matches. If his yellow were his only ability he would be a top tier 3* for his usefulness against PvE goons alone.

His blue is a true triple threat. It stuns for 3 turns, does 1772 damage every turn, and also drains 3 AP from the color you choose. So unlike other stuns where you are delaying the inevitable, you can actually counter a move that might be devastating by draining the AP required to use it. You can also hide this tile in the corner since you can place it. If his blue were his only ability he would be a top tier 3*.

His purple is forgettable but it does offer a unique mechanic in getting rid of trap tiles….which doesn’t matter because you should really never run this guy at anything other than 5/3/5.

My favorite combo is Strange/OML/Black Bolt – and my Black Bolt is only 1/1/1. Really a single black cover for BB and OML (maybe a red for him too) is all you need to start flying through PvE with blazing speed. Get some strike tiles out and some charged tiles out and every turn you are hitting for 1700+strikes at least once sometimes as many as 3 times. I tried using him with Star Lord during the Heroic and that works well, but the doubling up on animations every turn actually slows the match down to almost unbearable levels – certainly too slow for competitive PvE.

Pros: Incredibly fast, PvE All-star.
Cons: Constant animations and banners really slow him down.

5. Cyclops (Uncanny X-Men)
4. Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel)

Analysis
Write up by fanghoul
Kamala Kahn is one of the more powerful 3* characters, with 3 excellent powers that each have reasons to be set at 5 covers. Her passive, Bring Out The Best, heals the entire team enough at 5 covers to be a real menace when used on defense, or can be a life saver in a particularly tough offensive battle. Her AoE, Embiggened Bash, does a particularly large amount of damage compared with other 3* characters (or even some 4* characters) when at 5 covers. And her Inhuman Stretchiness generates the most green AP for her or another character to use when it's at 5 covers.

How you'll want to set her up depends on whether you want her as a battery on defense, or as the big damage on your team. Regardless, she's excellent addition to your roster.

She's also a vital part of the Stormfinite combo detailed here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53235&p=604756

Pros:
Strong attacks, heals and AP generation
Cons:
Can't do all of them well at the same time

Recommended build: 3/5/5
Good partners: Vision, Star-Lord (for cheap powers), Storm (for Stormfinite), really almost anyone.

3. Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff)

Analysis
Write up by Saeva
Scarlet Witch is a one spell character but it’s one doozy of a trick, overwhelming various PvE goon/character line-ups and discouraging challengers in PvP with her 5-turn stun and 2000+ full team damage. So long as you can collect the needed AP without taking too much damage she’s well-worth the effort even for players with 4★ line-ups.

Meanwhile, if you’re just beginning out in the 3★ transition, Scarlet Witch is a must-have character, one of the first that you should concentrate your effort on collecting. Especially her purple covers.

Health:

• @ 40: 2244
• @ 166: 8670
• @ 266: 13781

Abilities:

Purple | Does AoE damage while stunning one random enemy
Green | Destroys up to 4 tiles, of any type, generating AP
Blue | (Passive) Makes a countdown tile that changes up to 5 surrounding basic tiles to purple.
Pros:

• At max her purple ability is one of the best 3★ abilities in the game, doing 2200 damage per enemy and stunning one character for 5 turns.
• If you down a character with her purple ability a different character will be stunned, potentially stunning the only remaining enemy for 5 turns
• Her passive helps generate the purple AP needed to supply her own strongest ability.

Cons:

• While extremely useful, her purple ability is costly at 14AP.
• If the countdown tile from her passive blue is matched or appears in the corner generating enough purple for Reality Crush can be difficult.
• Her green ability is pretty weak, forcing you to rely on her purple ability.

Builds | 5/3/5 is by far her strongest and most popular build given the weakness of her green ability even at max.

Partners: Scarlet Witch does best with teams that cover the rainbow of abilities. When considering partners for her it’s best to think of a well-rounded team where her teammates have lower cost abilities that can buy or bide time until she collects enough purple to fire Reality Crush.

For this reason Quicksilver, Luke Cage, and Punisher are the best black-power characters to pair her with while red|yellow|blue AP characters such as Cyclops (4★), Magneto (Classic, 3★), Peggy Carter, and Vision with low-cost abilities ranging from 5 to 9AP round out the team. Alternatively, red|yellow|blue characters that generate their own AP, such as Iron Man 40 or Steve Rogers can also work well, though you’re likely to take some damage early on while collecting AP.

• 2★| Hawkeye is by far the best 2★ to pair her with as her passive can trigger his passive, Speed Shot, without competing for purple AP. Captain Marvel. Wolverine.
• 3★| Iron Man 40. Luke Cage. Magneto. Punisher. Quicksilver. Steve Rogers. Vision.
• 4★| Cyclops. Hulkbuster. Nova. Peggy Carter. Quake. Star-Lord. War Machine.

Specialized team: Due to a confluence of abilities, Scarlet Witch belongs to a so-called “winfinite” team designed, once it gets enough initial AP, to create an AP generation loop that allows you to continually trigger powers. This team -- Scarlet Witch, Grey Suit Black Widow, and Professor X -- is best used when Professor X is under Level 160 so that he doesn’t tank and end up dying before he can go invisible.

2. Iron Fist (Immortal Weapon)

Analysis
Write up by Sluggo
Pros: Fast, consistent damage against low-HP enemies, great battery for black AP users, solid single-target ability
Cons: relatively low HP makes him vulnerable on teams where he tanks colors.

Iron Fist received the top ranking among 3*s in the March 2016 community poll, and for good reason: he excels at almost everything. He does immediate and steady damage against low-level thugs, he can generate lots of black AP for other characters, or can power up a strong attack of his own. He's great solo or as a key teammate with a number of other characters.

ABILTIES: Right off the bat, IF's black passive places an attack tile that hits for 500 a turn once champed. It's great for rapidly disposing of low-HP goons, or just getting some steady damage going. At a cheap 5 AP, IF's purple floods the board with black tiles, which can be used to power up abilities for teammates or his own 4k+ punch. And while his green is not as game-changing as his other abilities, his strike tiles never hurt.

TEAM WITH: In the 3* tier, many MPQ veterans are familar with the PVP staple of Fist + Luke Cage, as their colors compliment each other IF's purple powers up Cage's black. Cy3lops and Black Panther are two other black AP users who team well with IF, and Scarlet Witch can really load IF up on purple, allowing him to unleash a flurry of punches once he's got enough AP banked.

In the 4* tier there's the well-known "Fistbuster" combo, teaming IF with Hulkbuster. Iron Fist's purple accelerates Hulkbuster's black, which in turn charges HB's colossal red nuke, giving you a pair that can pay immediate dividends in both PvE and PvP.

BOTTOM LINE: The love for Iron Fist is justified. If he's one of the first 3*s you champ, you'll immediately put him to work and you'll never run out of uses for him even when you're transitioning into 4*s. One of the absolute must-have 3*s.

1. Iron Man (Model 40)
Analysis
Write up by Sluggo

Pros: Generates massive AP; solid single-target and AOE damage
Cons: Virtually none

In the last round of community character rankings, IM40 was voted 34th out of 40 3* characters, and deservedly so. Then... he received a buff that turned him into (arguably?) the most useful 3* character in the game. For a cheap 6 yellow AP, IM40's Recharge is the battery that powers many of the best teams in MPQ, across multiple tiers.

ABILITIES: For just two yellow matches -- if you can get all three CD tiles to resolve in 2 turns -- IM40's Recharge gives your team a whopping +12 red, +12 blue, +9 green and +3 purple AP. There's no end to the number of solid teams you can build around this. Just pair IM40 with a red/blue and a green/purple user, and you're in business.

And IM40's red and blue abilities aren't slouches, either. Unibeam (red) is a solid single-target attack, while Ballistic Salvo (blue) does excellent AOE damage. Each of these has a drawback of draining AP from other colors, but that's easily mitigated with experience and timing.

TEAM WITH: Who doesn't IM40 pair well with? 3* Magneto and 3* Steve Rogers are two of his most popular teammates. St3ve in particular offers great board control once powered up, since his red and blue can overwrite any tile on the board and refund AP. Both 2* and 3* Human Torches are underrated partners, not just for a flurry of Fireballs, but also powering up Flame Jet with a huge bank of green.

In the 4* tier, IM40 + Th4r remains one of MPQ's most powerful and popular combos, with room left over for green/purple users like Rulk, X-23 or Iceman. And Star-Lord's recent buff can lower IM40's Recharge down to a miniscule 4AP, useful against goons that place lots of CD tiles.

BOTTOM LINE: For anyone starting the 2->3 transition, IM40 should be one of the first characters you look to cover and champ, as he'll remain useful all the way through the 4* transition. Perhaps it's fitting that the center of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has turned into one MPQ's cornerstone characters.

Ebolamonkey84

11. Steve Rogers (First Avenger)

Analysis
Write up by jobob
NOTE: I have already done a much more in-depth analysis of Steve, which can be found Here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=46904

Poor Cap is the worst 5* in the game, and it isn't even close. He is truly in a class by himself. He has above-average health and match damage... and that's probably the best thing to be said for him. The "Team Cap" roster is completely devoid of 5* teammates, and while it boasts some very good 3/4* by themselves, he lacks anyone that brings synergy to the team. You are better off bringing a boosted 4* (and in some cases, an unboosted 4* or even a 3* if it's PVE). His red is brutally underpowered compared to IM46, his blue seems great at first but is an absolute chore to use effectively even once, and his yellow is an expensive, wonky, unreliable power that ends the turn.


YELLOW:
Cap's yellow is expensive, ends the turn, and doesn't put out near enough special tiles to fuel his blue (and why would you want to remove those tiles, after spending 13 AP and giving up a turn). The damage is solid, provided the CD tiles all resolve, but with no way to predict where they all go, the odds of losing at least one are pretty high... espeically since casting this power ends the turn, which robs you of any chance to move the board around or strategically make a match to help ensure their survival.


RED:
The damage is mediocre, on the level of IM46 red with no teammates. And, unlike IM46, the damage does not scale with teammates, AND Cap himself doens't count as a teammate, meaning you only get 2 protect tiles with TWO TC teammates.


BLUE:
On paper, this is great. In practice, it's pretty terrible. The problem is that it REQUIRES special tiles to do ANY damage or healing... there is no base damage/heal that is buffed by more tiles. Second, 8 special tiles is A LOT to get out, and A LOT to lose. Unless you are using this as a finisher (in which case, the temporary heal aspect is worthless, btw), you may very well be better leaving the 8 tiles on the board, especially if they are expensive special tiles like Goblin strikes or OML strikes. You aren't going to save health packs with this move, because by the time you've gotten off enough moves to get the 8 required special tiles out -AND- collected enough AP to cast his blue... you've already taken a lot of damage. Even the relatively cheap AP cost is offset by the fact that you can't easily re-cast this power. Add to that the fact that there are really very few teammates who generate special tiles quickly enough to make blue work, and the ones that are are not TC, and you have (in my opinon) the MPQ character who is more in need of a redesign than any other.


PROS:
-Above average match damage
-Strong protect tiles with 2x TC teammates


CONS:
-No 5* TC teammates
-Lack of viable teammates in the 4* or 5* tier.
-Best teammates are 3*
-Best tile generators are not TC
-Poor color coordination with TC tile generators
-Expensive yellow that ends turn and is unreliable
-No self-acceleration
-Own tiles too expensive to want to remove with blue
-Red damage is mediocre & protect tiles require TC
-Blue CANNOT be fired without special tiles, and requires far too many for maximum effect
-Relatively cheap blue AP cost completely negated by the special tile requirement making multiple casts very difficult
-Seems to be designed as a health-pack saver, but in reality this isn't the case


RECOMMENDED BUILD:
-0/0/0; Cap doesn't fit into your roster. Assuming you have rostered and champed him, I would go with 3/5/5, as the yellow is expensive and unpredictable.


GOOD PARTNERS:
-OML + PX - This is a DECENT team for using his blue repeatedly. The reason being, each cast of your blue will add 5 more special tiles, meaning it should at least be firing at around 60% on multi-casts
-MoStorm + IM40 - This is BY FAR the best PVE team, but it is squishy as can be. Mo Storm is the lone source for lots of cheap special tiles that doesn't create a color conflict. If you can gather enough black for a cast, and fire off IM40, you can cast Cap's blue multiple times for devastating effect (while also using Storm green to hopefully gain enough black/yellow AP to replenish the special tiles and add more IM40 recharges)

10. The Hulk (Bruce Banner)
9. Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)
8. Silver Surfer (Skyrider)
7. Spider-Man (Back in Black)
6. Iron Man (Mark XLVI)

Analysis
Write up by jobob
Iron Man Mk 46 is a strong offensive character that can also absorb a decent amount of damage. His blue is capable of creating cascades which can be deadly given that he has the strongest match damage in the game, and is in the tier of 5* that have the 4.2x critical multiplier (as opposed to 4.0). The red is mediocre by himself, but deadly with a full "Team Iron Man" roster (and, unlike Cap, TIM includes 5* characters). His yellow (provided the CD tiles go off) packs quite a punch as well, and has the added benefit of damage absorption, which can save you in long matches, and is equally effective (at least for Iron Man) against Single-Target or AOE attacks.

RED:
At its weakest (meaning no TIM teammates), it is far from being the worst 5* power. 972 dmg/AP isn't great by any means, but it's a solid source of damage. Obviously, this power really shines when you add a "Team Iron Man" teammate, and becomes an outright nuke if a 3rd is added. A TIM trio brings the damage to just under 25k, and at only 9 AP (2769 dmg/AP) it puts this power essentially even with Green Goblin's black nuke, but without the CD tile restrictions.


BLUE:
Provided you aren't playing against an opponent whose strongest power is Red, this is one of the best 5* actives in the game. While it doesn't create as many red tiles per AP (up to 8 for 10 AP) as Phonix purple (7 for 7), it is much more effective in one cast because you can hold casting the power until you are guaranteed to create matches, because you know exactly what color will be turned. I do not cast this power until I am guaranteed at least one match by the color transformation. On top of this, you then get the damage for each destroyed tile, which can really add up, and the subsequent tile destruction typically creates at least a couple more matches. Furthermore, it clears the board of what may (or may not be) an important enemy color. You can pair this power up with another power that destroys a certain type of tile (Quake blue, CMags red) or any power that creates red (PHx purple) or the enemies strongest color for added punch. The major downside comes when the enemies' strongest color is red, which eliminates the chance for red matches/cascades, reduces the damage output, and lowers the probability of a post-damage cascade. A smaller downside to the power is that it does not typically lend itself to repeat casts, as the board must replenish itself with both red and the enemies "strongest" color (though you can accelerate this with Phx purple). A couple other comment about this power: First, its damage varies more than just about any other power. I have had it do anywhere from under 5k damage up to well over 200k damage... it's very dependent on board layout and how the RNG tiles fall. Second, note that only BASIC color tiles are transformed or destroyed... for example this power can be frustratingly handicapped if OML fires his black power, which turns 4 black tiles into strike tiles that will no longer change color (and OML will typically create multiple red strike tiles that will not be destroyed either). This includes CD and charged tiles.


YELLOW:
Yellow is a somewhat oddball power in that it's not truly offensive or defensive, rather a bit of both. This gives it flexibility, allowing it to do very respectable (2117 dmg/AP) damage that can be spread out over multiple enemies if one or more are at low health, or absorb ANY amount of damage (above the target threshold) that would normally come to Iron Man. The tradeoffs are that it isn't a cheap power at 12 AP, it doesn't do the damage immediately and is by no means guaranteed with 3 x 3-turn CD tiles, and the damage absorption threshold is fairly high AND requires Iron Man to either stay out in front -OR- that the damage comes from an AOE attack (note that this will not negate damage for the whole team). Furthermore, you only have a 3-turn window to absorb the damage. The high damage threshold is a double-edged sword... you won't lose the tiles immediately to match damage, but if you cast this with only a few thousand health, it won't save you from being whittled down. His blue (provided enemy strongest color /= red) and red (provided a TIM teammate or two) powers are so much better, more reliable, and immediate that I tend to focus on those colors, meaning I don't get this power off very often. On defense, however, it is VERY irritating when this power goes off... you are obviously trying to remove them before the CD resolves to avoid the damage, but if you can't match them away, it's tough to take IM46 down fast enough, since the CD will negate anything above match damage.


PROS:
-STRONG Damage Dealer: Highest match damage and Critical multiplier in MPQ, 3 strong active offensive powers.
-Decent color coordination with many 5*
-Multiple effective builds
-Has 2 5IM teammates (Silver Surfer, Spider-Man)
-Good health, yellow can absorb essentially infinite damage
-Blue is great for cascades and criticals
-Red ranges from decent to amazing depending on teammates
-Decent self-acceleration (blue->red)


CONS:
-Red is mediocre without at least one TIM teammate
-Blue damage is very board dependent and varies significantly; Limited to basic color tiles
-Expensive yellow; 3-turn CD feels too long for offense, too short for defense
-His 2 5* partners each have only 1 active power (Surfer black, Spidey green) that doesn't cause color overlap
-Despite his high health and yellow damage absorption, the lack of healing means he will suck up health packs.
-Lacks the strike tile generation that is present with many other 5*


RECOMMENDED BUILD:
-Primarily 5/5/3. There is room for discussion on this, however, and frankly ANY IM46 build is viable. For starters, 3->5 red provides a significant jump with 2 TIM teammates (18.5k -> 25k). But without the teammates, the increase is only about 1k (7651 -> 8744) making 3 red a small sacrifice in that situation (4 red covers is right in between 3 and 5 for damage). The efficacy of the blue is somewhat limited by the number of the enemy's strongest color tiles... at 5 covers, it will transform up to 8 of them, but at times you do find yourself without 8 of those tiles on the board, essentially wasting the extra covers. I have run this power at only 4 in the past without seeing a huge efficacy decrease, but I find that moving from 7->8 seems to help out with the cascades MOST of the time. The obvious exception is when you fight a team with 3 characters whose strongest color is red, in which case there is ZERO improvement from 1->5 covers, making 5/3/5 the undeniably best build. With yellow, the defensive aspect does not change from 3->5 covers, so the only difference is the damage per CD increases 6580 -> 7520 (again, 4 covers falls almost halfway in between). If all 3 CD tiles go off, this can mean 5k+ additional damage... but my feeling is that the yellow is more expensive, less reliable, and therefore less of a focus, so you will not be casting this power nearly as much as the other two.


GOOD PARTNERS:
-Phx - Though sharing a red active, the way that her purple either A) sets up the board for an IM46 blue, or replenishes the board's red for a second IM46 blue cast, makes these two a very, very powerful couple. Add to that the red strike tiles generated by PHx won't be removed by his blue and will amplify the damage significantly (and in turn will likely cause cascades and potential crits that result in PHx strengthening them further) and the damage output increases even further. Finally, though you will go with PHx red primarily, IM46 does give you a backup option if you have reached the strike tile max that would cause PHx to create enemy attack tiles.
-GG - See above in the GG section
-Featured TIM + Boosted Rulk - This may be the meanest PVP team in the game, as boosted Rulk is a nightmare by himself, and is in fact a member of "Team Iron Man," sending Iron Man's red damage into overdrive.
-GG + Black Bolt - This is my favorite active rainbow team. A great AP accelerator/passive damage dealer in Bolt, a flexible support character/damage dealer in GG, and pure damage with IM46. Match away whatever tiles Black Bolt is charging because it will be powering a good to great power, and doing tons of match damage.

5. Green Goblin (Norman Osborn)

Analysis
Write up by jobob
Gobby is a very fun character to play, as he offers a lot of options, along with a massive nuke. His purple is completely CD-based, and his black has a CD cooldown. This means that there is a delay in damage when you get the purple off, and the black isn't repeatedly spammable. The CD tiles- especially with a bit of forethought- do tend to survive due to his yellow passive, which fortifies the tiles. He makes a fantastic partner for almost any character who relies on CD tiles surviving (e.g. SWitch, IM40), and for the same reason a bad partner for someone who you want to destroy their tiles (XFDP, WS). The tradeoff is his squishiness; GG will eat health packs at an alarming rate.


BLACK:
This is a devastating single-target nuke (22.5k at level 450 [2812 dmg/AP]), especially for only 8 AP. The caveat is that if the return CD tile is destroyed, the power is inacessible for the rest of the match. It is also not a spammable power due to the return CD. It's not a move I typically plan on using twice. Manage your board to clear away possible black matches to give the CD the best chance to resolve.


PURPLE:
This is a solid and flexible power that offers more options than any other active in the game. Be judicious about choosing the color, based not only on game situation, but the board as well. Don't pick a color that is closely bunched together. Thankfully, due to the yellow passive, the CD tiles only have to last 1 turn. When all 3 tiles resolve, they are some of the most powerful in the game.
THE COLOR EFFECTS, BASED ON USEFULNESS:
-Red: Deals damage at the end of the CD, and lots of it. At champ-level, damge is 3 x 9974. At higher levels, it will take out a full-health champion OML. Also, since it does damage one at a time, you don't "waste" as much damage if one of the enemies is at reduced health. Typically used later in the game to finish off 1 or more enemies
-Black: Puts out 3 black, extremely powerful (3 x 1439, strike tiles (approx 20-25% more powerful than a similar level OML. Use this over the red if you have a secondary source of damage (attack tiles, Bolt passive, etc) and it is relatively early in the match.
-Purple: Steals 3 AP from 3 random colors for each tile. A transfer of 27 AP (3 x 3 x 3) will cripple the opponents' offense and set you on the path to victory. Best used early in the match, when opponent has collected AP, but hasn't yet used any.
-Blue: 2-turn stun per CD. This is a very rarely used color. Because you have to wait for the CD to resolve, it isn't an immediate stun, and it's obviously most efficient vs 3 enemies, but that then requires all 3 to go off. You are almost always better off with red or black.
-Green: Tile destruction. I can't think of many instances where this is more useful than red/black.
-Yellow: Protect tiles. These are the same strength as the black strike tiles, so they are indeed very strong and able to completely mitigate match damage. But, this is MPQ, you will almost always come out better with AP steal, strike tiles, or direct damage.


YELLOW:
As an active, it is below average. But the passive (which achieves maximum power at only 3 covers) is a very good power that isn't found anywhere else in the game. It makes moves that can be mediocre due to having long CDs that need to resolve (e.g. IM46 yellow 3-turn CD tiles) and makes them much more reliable and thus very good. A note on how this power works: it happens at the beginning of the turn at the same "level of operation" as automatic CD tiles... this means that if paired with an auto-CD character (SWitch, Cho) if you place Goblin behind them in the character select (i.e. on the right), the CD tiles will be immediately fortified. This provides a tremendous boost to this type of character.


PROs:
-Very Flexible: Damage dealer, stun, strike tiles, AP steal
-Strongest strike tiles in MPQ and great damage dealing
-Excellent teammate to CD-heavy characters
-Good single target Nuke (~2800 dmg/AP)


CONS:
-Best colors overlap with 2 of the best moves in 5* land: OML black and Phoenix purple
-Less health than most 5* and will drain health packs.
-Works against teammates who put CD tiles out that you want to destroy (Kate, XFDP, Winter Soldier, etc)


RECOMMENDED BUILD:
-5/5/3 and it's a no-brainer. The yellow passive maxes out at 3 covers, and there isn't a need (yet anyway) at the highest levels to need to reduce more than 3 CD tiels


GOOD PARTNERS:
-IM46 - The only active they share is yellow, but you want to go with IM on that since it puts out a lot of damage. GG will fortify those tiles, which is nice. Also, IM46 blue does not destroy CD tiles, so you can place them on the enemies strongest color (or red) and fire IM blue to remove possible matches.
-Switch + Phx - GG adds 2 colors of 5* damage to Phx, and it's amazing how much better this team gets when SWitch's tiles are immediately fortified.

4. Black Bolt (Inhuman King)

Analysis
Write up by GrimSkald
The King of the Inhumans is also the king of charged tile generation – making 2 a turn at 3 or more black. He also has a decent blast that can be a good game-ender, as well as the unique ability to boost other characters’ covers.

Green: Decent damage – since it takes out the two center rows you can do some enemy tile destruction and or arrange matches. The “overdrive” attack comes surprisingly quickly with his charged tile generation, but resets you to square one.
Black – Great overall accelerator passive, coupled with constant damage later in the match.
Yellow – Works best with characters not-fully covered, or a 4/4/5 build. It cannot be matched, but can be destroyed in a match-4 or by powers.

Pros:

• Black will accelerate AP generation pretty much all around.
• Can boost the effectiveness of under-covered 5*s or a new character in their first PVE.

Cons:

• Weak on defense as the AI does not prioritize Charged Tiles.
• Yellow is very situational – unless you build around it the power has a very minor effect.

Recommended Build: 5/5/3 - like many 5*s, level is a stronger factor to the character’s usefulness than covers, and a non-fully covered Black Bolt can still be quite useful. I would say you want black at three covers at least to get 2 charged tiles a turn. Green’s damage is lackluster at lower levels, but this isn’t inherently a problem so long as you don't accidentally trigger the overdrive.

Good Partners – Goddess Thor is the most obvious partner for Black Bolt, but to be honest, since he churns out the charged tiles, he pairs well with many other characters. A good strike tile generator will also increase his damage per turn once there are four charged tiles on the board.

3. Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme)
2. Jean Grey (Phoenix)
1. Wolverine (Old Man Logan)

Ebolamonkey84

41. Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards)

Analysis
Write up by GrimSkald
Reed has issues. Possibly he’s too smart for his own good, but the only thing he does well is give you some compensation when the AI matches your special tiles.

Blue: Not bad, actually, but it’s only single-target and there are better stuns out there. Protect tiles won’t win you the game.
Yellow: Can make him frustrating to fight when the AI is controlling him, but that’s about it.
Black: On paper it looks neat – it gives extra damage to certain colors like OBW. This can benefit from strike tiles, for example. In practice, though, it’s not cheap, the tiles go away very easily, and will frequently run out barely used. It also doesn’t really do very much damage.

Pros:

• Is very good at surviving with Carnage on your team.
• A true heal is always nice, it’s true, but he really doesn’t do anything else.
• Is probably in line for a buff sooner or later.

Cons:

• See above. He doesn’t do anything better than anyone else other than survive with Carnage.

Recommended Build: 5/3/5 will probably serve you best in his featured DDQ, but other builds are arguable.

Good Partners: Carnage. You would think he would do well with other members of the Fantastic Four, but he lacks synergy with their powers and just doesn’t do anything well himself. He does okay with Invisible Woman, particularly since her boost, but all he really brings to the table is a fairly weak extra damage with his black and a drop of green AP plus true heal for himself when special tiles get matched.

40. Devil Dinosaur (Gigantic Reptile)

Analysis
Write up by DaveR4470
Devil Dinosaur, everyone’s favorite red Tyrannosaurus Rex of unknown gender (he was a he, but then he laid eggs, and participated in the Women of Marvel promotion, so apparently he’s a she), is… polarizing. Among the MPQ community, there are three main camps: (a) She’s terrible, (b) OMG SHE IS SO TERRIBLE, and (c) the maybe 1% of us who actually like her.

Some things are inarguable, though. First, Devil Dinosaur is not intended, and never has been intended, as a mainstream MPQ character. She’s a trinket; a “souvenir” character introduced as part of MPQ’s first anniversary. Second, her power set is subpar by current 4* tier standards. Third, she’s mainly a status symbol; there are really no circumstances in which an ISO investment in DDino is the better choice than investment in almost any other 4* or 3* character. (Okay, maybe Sentry… Actually, definitely Sentry. Sentry sucks. But I digress.) Fourth, her recent reworking made her more viable and playable overall, but removed everyone’s favorite power, her 3AP purple flappy arms power. Favorite not because it did much – at best, if you were lucky, you’d get a match in a non-purple color, and you’d be swapping 3 purple for 3 of another color. But because you could team DD with, say, Star-Lord and Professor X, get that purple cost down to 1AP, and then fill up the board with friendly special tiles to end the match quickly. Or have a reliably cheap Kamala Khan health pop (while your loveable dinosaur tanked green for her). Or [insert trivially-triggered passive power here]. That’s all gone now.

But I don’t think one should view Ms. Dino as a 4* character. Devil is functionally a limited edition 3* character. When DD is available (anniversary events only), she is very available – far more available than any 4* ever is. In a typical anniversary week, even a moderate player has been able to pull down 3-6 covers. Three Devil covers are given out as daily rewards on your first anniversary with the game. Even though she’s only around once a year, it’s actually fairly easy, relatively speaking, to cover her up.

And viewed as a 3*, or as a “beginner level” 4* that’s easier for 2-3 and 3-4 transition players to obtain and strengthen, Devil is kinda useful, at least in PvE. She’s got an ENORMOUS health pool; over 19k at L270. Strong match damage in red (74) and green (85) means she can tank those colors effectively for squishier red and green users. Her chomp does 4851 damage at max for 10 red AP; her bite does 2575 damage and gives you a little (4 tile) board shake for only 7 green AP. Her purple arm waggle now costs 6 AP, but swaps two random tiles of any color, and doesn’t send one to the upper left corner anymore. Plus, it does a small amount of damage (1819 at max, but more like 850 at the recommended 3-cover build).

In the current PvP world, though, there’s really no compelling reason to run out a Devil with your team – even a maxed Devil – if you’ve got any better choice. At best, it might make someone with a damage-challenged team skip over you just to avoid the big health pool. At worst, it’s just the third character that Thoress and IM40 easily take out when there are 16 charged tiles on the board and Mjolnir’s smiting 20k damage a pop.

Her suggested build – arguably her only sensible build – is 5-5-3. The increase in damage from her arm waggle at 5 covers simply does not justify the damage lost from losing even one cover in red or green. It’s also important to note that Devil Dinosaur has a very quirky leveling mechanism. Leveling one level at a time costs less ISO-8 than leveling all at once. Why? Because… boomerangs? I don’t know. It’s weird, it’s anachronistic, it makes no sense. Finally, if you are ludicrously wealthy and can max champ Devil Dinosaur, her damage scales up quite well and you get a lot of legendaries, ISO, and HP along the way. Also, I’m pretty sure I hate you.

So don’t hate on the Dino. Yeah, in the big picture she’s not great. But she’s a good character for transitioners, and a good meat shield for PvE. And don’t forget that since she’s not in the rotation at all, she’s not squeezing out the covers you really want from your Heroics and Legendaries.

/flaps tiny little arms

39. Wasp (Janet Van Dyne)
38. Drax (The Destroyer)

Analysis
Write up by GrimSkald
A pure damage-dealing character that relies on conditional powers, Drax can hit surprisingly hard.

Black: Pretty much a trash power – you need someone who creates a lot of countdown tiles to make it effective, and even then it’s still too expensive. It is only really useful in his featured DDQ.
Purple: Actually a decent conditional power – you need to wait until the board doesn’t have any purple matches and you have another power to fire, but it does quite a lot of damage when the conditions are met.
Red: Again, a conditional power that you only want to use on a mostly-unharmed foe, but does very good damage.

Pros:

• Purple and Red are fairly cheap, so come quickly.
• Both powers can frequently one-shot characters when Drax is boosted.

Cons:

• Black is nearly completely useless, so effectively a two-power character.
• Purple tiles are sometimes destroyed even when you’re careful. Also purple is useless when he is the last character or for his DDQ.
• Red becomes a lot less useful as the fight progresses, and requires you to do math.

Recommended Build: Definitely 3/5/5 for reasons stated above.

Good Partners: Drax works well with other characters that use red – you use Drax for the first shot, then the other red for later ones. He also works well with characters that have relatively cheap powers to couple with his purple. He works particularly poorly with characters that do damage to all characters at once (AoEs) – one of those and his red is pretty much out of commission.

37. Venom (Eddie Brock)
36. Elektra (Unkillable)
35. Carnage (Cletus Kasady)
34. Gwenpool (Gwen Poole)
33. Howard The Duck (Howard, A Duck)
Analysis
Write up by Fightmaster
Released during the second anniversary as a "joke" character, Howard is far from a joke. If not for sharing the blue/purple/green color scheme with two top tier 4*s in Jean Grey and Iceman I think he would be ranked much higher. The other major drawback is how hard it is to get covers for him since he isn't in any packs and has only been available twice. Still, if you have a chance to grab some covers for him next time he comes around - take it! He's a ton of fun to play and offers a unique set of abilities at the tier.

In 5* land Howard is best used for his blue TU. MBW seems to be the queen, but I give out Howard TUs every chance I get. With so many OML/PHX duos running around a stun with strike tile elimination is very helpful. His green is not terrible as a hard counter to any green user especially when paired with a green generator, and while it lacks the punch that it could have, the board shake is helpful. Lastly his purple is incredibly annoying and gives him an edge over any team without an AoE threat. At 5 purple you can drop FIVE invisibility tiles and stay hidden virtually forever. For me though 5/5/3 is his best build. You definitely want 5 blue for the 3 turn stun, and typically the added damage on green gets used more than purple. If you are fighting PvE goons though 5 purple might work better as you can keep that sustained damage going for a lot longer, so a 3/5/5 build is possible as well.

Typically I would recommend good characters to play with Howard, but really Howard is more of a defensive character that you want to play against green users, tile generators or even goons, and teams with no AoE.

Pros: Good TUs, shake-up, invisibility
Cons: One of the weaker G/B/P characters, covers are hard to come by
32. Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy)

Analysis
Write up by elvy75
There was a time when we didn’t have enough spider verse characters in game, then things started to change and lately we saw influx of those characters, with one of them being an alternate world spider girl – Spider Gwen. She is fun to play a bit goofy character that has devastating punch when boosted, but if I would have to pick a mode she is designed for it would be pve rather than pvp.

Purple: For just 6 AP at max cover level it stuns two random opponents and creates two web tiles.
Red: This is initially high AP ability, that costs less with each web tile on the board, up to 6 AP and oh boy does it have a punch, it is one of the best red abilities in the game.
Yellow: Oh the famous spider healing, though this time done on others for 8 AP, with additional benefit of creating web tiles to make that red faster.

Pros
Useful stun that also accelerates red color
Red is dealing some serious damage for low AP if conditions are right
Cons
Too slow if no web tiles are present
Yellow ability almost looks like wasted

Recommended build: 5/5/3
Good partners: IM40


31. Blade (Modern)

Analysis
Write up by _Daywalker_
Like his 3* counterpart, 4* Blade doesn't work well with red power users... unlike 3* Blade, however, Modern Blade wants to you match red, so he can passively use it with his red power that turns from The Hunger into Bloodlust, doing damage at the start of your turn and reducing your red AP. Think of it like a Human Torch green power without the countdown tile. His other powers do some damage, sometimes heal Blade and can destroy some AP in the enemy team's strongest color, but 4* Blade is all about creating free strike tiles while you gather up red AP for him to passively damage the other team at the start of every turn.

Red: The passive you either love or hate. You hate it if you have to put him on your team at a low-level (as an essential character, for example) but once covered and leveled this power is where it's all at. At 5 covers, it's passively generating a strike tile (not on just red tiles like 3* Blade, but on any random color tile) as long as there are 10 or more red tiles on the board. When it changes into Bloodlust (at 5 covers, when you have 9 or more red AP), it's doing damage at the start of every turn, enhanced by any strike tiles on the board, reducing your red AP by one each time.
Green: At 9 AP this is a fairly cheap power. It does okay-but-not-great AOE damage and has a bonus of healing Blade if you have 7 or more AP.
Black: At 11 AP, this relatively expensive power doesn't do a whole lot for its cost. At 3 covers it destroys 4 AP from the enemy's strongest color and if you have 7 or more red AP, it creates 4 red tiles. At 5 covers it still destroys 4 AP and then creates 6 red tiles.

Pros

• If you can build a team around his hunger for red AP, Blade's free strike tiles and passive damage at the start of your turn can add up to impressive damage numbers.

Cons

• With so many red powerhouses in the game, it's hard to build a team that won't mind its red AP being passively sucked away by Blade.

Recommended build: 5/5/3

Good partners: Hulkbuster, 4* or 3* Cyclops, as long as you configure them to be red-generating batteries and ignore their own red powers. Otherwise any team that doesn't rely on red AP so Blade can have it all to himself.

rc35

Ooh, Ebolamonkey, you're a tease! What's the point of showing us that big block of black?

Ebolamonkey84

rc35 wrote:

Ooh, Ebolamonkey, you're a tease! What's the point of showing us that big block of black?

It was meant to tease people. I'll post 41-11 after my final exam tonight.

rc35

I realised it was a deliberate tease, hence the .
But crikey, you're doing exams the same week as releasing the ranking results?! Man, that's dedication to the cause. I multiply my thanks and gratitude to you tenfold. Wow.

carrion_pigeons

Are you rolling out character descriptions one at a time? I submitted a handful for 3*s that aren't up and I was want to make sure you noticed them. I know you got the PM, since you used the OBW description from it, but there should have been a lot more in that message.