How to counter 4* Captain Marvel and Medusa combo?

easarnold

I've been seeing a lot of SHIELD event opponents with the combo of Captain Marvel/Medusa with Wasp or Carnage.

I haven't been able to win a single fight against them. What's the best way to counter that combo?

Pongie

My strategy is to bring someone with a one hit kill ability not in my strongest colour to down medusa while avoiding carol's green passive. Preferably in purple do prevent medusa from stealing all those tiles created by carol/wasp/carnage. Once medusa is down, you no longer have to worry about the whole team healing and it becomes a much easier fight (still deadly cause carol/wasp/carnage can still pack a punch).

FoxInSox

Easier said than done, but you can always fight fire with fire. Bring your own c4rol / wasp / medusa and collect blue 1st and purple 2nd. This avoids enemy carol's green passive and when you have 6 blue for wasp, your own carol's yellow will buff to infinity your own tiles and tiles carnage has given you. You'll soon mow the other team down, regardless of their ability to heal. Since you've been collecting and denying purple, your medusa can also steal the enemy's tiles, without letting them do the same to you.

Calnexin

I usually use the "skip" button.

Medusa/Carnage in particular is just horrible to fight against.  I've lost about 80% of the time.  The times I've won I used Starlord with Iceman for relatively quick stun/punch to Medusa.  Speed seems to be key, because once the board fills up one bad cascade heals the entire team back up to full.

I think Gwenpool might make a good counter.  Medusa only acts when tiles are matched, not destroyed.  Gwen's sploits can get rid of all of them and do a decent amount of damage in the process.  Use it with an effective AoE or lesser nuke and you can take Medusa down and have a much easier time with the rest of the battle.  Gwen does seem to be a little bit squishy, though.  I've been using her boosted this week but she drains health packs because my setup isn't tanking her colors.

TiberiusKhan

Calnexin said:

I think Gwenpool might make a good counter.  Medusa only acts when tiles are matched, not destroyed.  Gwen's sploits can get rid of all of them and do a decent amount of damage in the process.  Use it with an effective AoE or lesser nuke and you can take Medusa down and have a much easier time with the rest of the battle.  Gwen does seem to be a little bit squishy, though.  I've been using her boosted this week but she drains health packs because my setup isn't tanking her colors.

Gwenpool's Green actually makes for a great AOE and/or Nuke depending on how it rolls, and Sploits is really over powered as stated. I'm running her 5/3/5 with IM40 to battery and either C4ge, Strang3, or Medusa for defense or heals. Seems to work pretty well, but not nearly as well as the skip button.

naps8906

This is not even a headache... try taking on caranage + dusa team OMG

Straycat

I usually skip Medusa, she's beatable but drains health packs.  Carol is a good counter to Carol. Especially if both Carols are the highest level, so her passive will trigger the AOE.
I finished up SIM the other day mainly running Carol, Peggy, and Rhulk. Medusa's constant damage was triggering Rhulk's seeing red, so if I could get any strikes out they get constantly buffed.

easarnold

Unfortunately the only 4 stars that are championed for me are:
Xforce, X23, IW, Star Lord, Nick Fury and Devil Dinosaur.

I've tried with a low level 5* Wolvie to heal up but even he gets slaughtered before I'm able to collect enough AP to take one of them down

byc

I avoid them unless they're 60+ points.

Otherwise I outclass them with Thanos + Carol myself, which helps nobody because my Thanos is 2/5/5.  Even with 375 Thanos, I lose sometimes.  It's a powerful team.

MarkersMake

With only those 4* champs to choose from, the short answer on how to beat Carol/Medusa/(Wasp/Carnage) is: you can't. Not reliably, anyway. Keep collecting CP as much as you can and just skip those matches for now.

They are the top tier of the new paradigm of strong passive powers (both damage & healing) and you need to either fight fire with fire by rostering and leveling your own (Carol counters herself well, and Medusa is a good counter to another Medusa and is a must against Carnage), or you need to be able to take at least one of them out quickly.

It helps a LOT if you can stun one or two of them to take their passive powers out of the equation, so Peggy is your best bet here.  It's cheesy, but IM40 + Peggy + anyone will win you this fight (and most others) fairly reliably.  She's definitely worth setting as your Bonus Hero, and she can be very effective even when not fully covered (5 covers in blue helps a lot).

As far as tactics go, I always take Carol out first - her green passive is subtle, but it quickly fuels her deadly black (the AI will use her yellow on that right away to insta-kill one of your team) and can do significant AoE damage to your team as well. For Wasp, you really have to deny Blue religiously, because nobody on that team has an active blue power, so once she collects 6 blue her passive will be active every turn for the rest of the match. Take her down next (or Carnage if he's on the team). Medusa by herself isn't very difficult - just don't match her countdowns.

This doesn't do you any good whatsoever with your roster right now, but I use Peggy/Carol/Medusa with decent success (all champed) - that way I've got some approach flexibility depending on what's on the board.

byc

I'm also much more scared of Carol, Carnage, and Medusa.  Carol super charges those attack tiles very quickly when Medusa's countdown tiles expire.

mckauhu

I just skip, don't even bother trying and haven't tried even once.

Tiger_Wong

Vs Medusa/Carnage/Carol

Elektra 3/5/5 or 4/4/5
Invisible Woman 4/4/5
Medusa 5/4/4

this team has the defense you want, some good buffs, a decent one shot kill and AP gain. Leave Carnage for last. I like to get 8 yellow and 8 red as soon as possible. All the other colors you'll probably get just by Medusa's passive, which I set to 5 to get 3 green/blue/purple. Sue's invisibility cancels out all the one shot hits except Carnage's AOE. But that's what you've got Elektras Ballet of Death for. It steals 1 red 1 black and 1 purple every turn along with dealing damage. So it holds off Carnage from getting his AOE and Carol from doing her countdown tile, which is hard to get rid of. 

Attack Medusa with match damage. Use Sue's Force Bubbles power when Medusa's CD is NOT on the field. You don't want to possibly bubble it and then the next couple turns have it matched and then have to deal with TWO of those CDs on the field. 

Hit Carol with Force Field Crush. If it doesn't kill her with one shot, finish her off with match damage in the next turn or two. You'll probably have enough AP for two FFC, so hit her with both. 

When Susan is invisible, the match damage will then go to either Elektra or Medusa. This is usually a good thing because that's when you pop off Elektras Shadow Step and soak up that damage for zero to you and a bunch of damage to your opponent on their turn. Elektra becomes a Medusa killer when Shadow Step hits the field. I run it at 5 for 5 trap tiles and 930 damage. Can the tiles be neutralized by Carnage's passive? Yes. But.....

.... that's what makes Elektras Double Double Cross good as well. Carnage's passive only activates if there's 10 friendly special tiles on the field. He makes 2 each turn. You throw a DDC out there and there's 3 more, really weak special tiles for them to hold and Carnage will stop. 

Carols passive really becomes a non issue because of your own Medusa's passive and Elektras Ballet of Death. If your strongest color is blue/purple/green/black then you're fine because all you have do is match an enemy tile or activate Ballet of Death, and you're gonna get that AP anyway. 

The longer the match goes, the easier it becomes and the less damage you receive. You'll have a few bubbles preventing attack tile damage and slowing the board down. There will be a TON of special tiles on the field for you to heal off of from Medusa's yellow passive. There are really only two ways for you to lose or receive a bunch of damage. 

1) Carol gets off her black and you unluckily have no way to prevent one of your characters from taking the full damage. 
2) Carnage gets his AOE off twice with you having no way to prevent the damage at all. 

This team is almost idiot-proof vs Medusa/Carnage/Carol.

Style55

Tiger Wong said:

Vs Medusa/Carnage/Carol

Elektra 3/5/5 or 4/4/5
Invisible Woman 4/4/5
Medusa 5/4/4

this team has the defense you want, some good buffs, a decent one shot kill and AP gain. Leave Carnage for last. I like to get 8 yellow and 8 red as soon as possible. All the other colors you'll probably get just by Medusa's passive, which I set to 5 to get 3 green/blue/purple. Sue's invisibility cancels out all the one shot hits except Carnage's AOE. But that's what you've got Elektras Ballet of Death for. It steals 1 red 1 black and 1 purple every turn along with dealing damage. So it holds off Carnage from getting his AOE and Carol from doing her countdown tile, which is hard to get rid of. 

Attack Medusa with match damage. Use Sue's Force Bubbles power when Medusa's CD is NOT on the field. You don't want to possibly bubble it and then the next couple turns have it matched and then have to deal with TWO of those CDs on the field. 

Hit Carol with Force Field Crush. If it doesn't kill her with one shot, finish her off with match damage in the next turn or two. You'll probably have enough AP for two FFC, so hit her with both. 

When Susan is invisible, the match damage will then go to either Elektra or Medusa. This is usually a good thing because that's when you pop off Elektras Shadow Step and soak up that damage for zero to you and a bunch of damage to your opponent on their turn. Elektra becomes a Medusa killer when Shadow Step hits the field. I run it at 5 for 5 trap tiles and 930 damage. Can the tiles be neutralized by Carnage's passive? Yes. But.....

.... that's what makes Elektras Double Double Cross good as well. Carnage's passive only activates if there's 10 friendly special tiles on the field. He makes 2 each turn. You throw a DDC out there and there's 3 more, really weak special tiles for them to hold and Carnage will stop. 

Carols passive really becomes a non issue because of your own Medusa's passive and Elektras Ballet of Death. If your strongest color is blue/purple/green/black then you're fine because all you have do is match an enemy tile or activate Ballet of Death, and you're gonna get that AP anyway. 

The longer the match goes, the easier it becomes and the less damage you receive. You'll have a few bubbles preventing attack tile damage and slowing the board down. There will be a TON of special tiles on the field for you to heal off of from Medusa's yellow passive. There are really only two ways for you to lose or receive a bunch of damage. 

1) Carol gets off her black and you unluckily have no way to prevent one of your characters from taking the full damage. 
2) Carnage gets his AOE off twice with you having no way to prevent the damage at all. 

This team is almost idiot-proof vs Medusa/Carnage/Carol.

Thank you for this. I was reluctant to drop ISO on Elektra (4/4/3) but after reading your guide I may do it once I get the last 2 covers she's missing. Same with Sue (3/4/4).

spatenfloot

If you don't mind using whales, try x23, deadpool, scarlet witch. X23 is just to tank and heal up. With your roster, you don't have many options against that team.

byc

Elektra while powered-up is definitely a major problem now.  I find if I can't get her down early, I often lose.

Evilplayer

I use medusa patch and carol it works very well for me. 
At first i try to get 2 or 4 attack tiles from my medu passive, so i can get some healing back while im trying to get wolverines green. Once wolverines green is full im going after medu purple and once is full first i use wolverines berserker then medusas purple to get most of the strikes for me. Plus the damage i deal in the process is very good especially if a cascade happens. 
Then it gets very easy

FokaiHI

I use Medusa/ C4rol/ Bl4de. Basically the other skip team.