The Current Meta

mohio

Daiches said:

Reads posts. Reads them again. Sees no mention of 99% of all teams being Thanos/Panther. 

Hmmmm. Guess there are different meta for different players. Guess that's MMR for you. Wonder if there are 3star players complaining somewhere about CageFist or 2star players about MagStorm or Daken/Wolverine.

My expectation when seeing the title was this as well. I mentioned it elsewhere but the fact that you see people using their 450-455 Thanos/Panther combo over other teams they could have made with 470+ level 5* to me illustrates "the 5* meta" and it perhaps being a tiny bit unhealthy at the moment. The funny thing is I have no problems beating these teams with my 455-ish OML/PHX team and generally don't even really need a healthpack afterwards, but similarly they feast on me, and can do it much quicker so I don't really even stand a chance.

Astralgazer

Vhailorx said:

Why does c4ge + 4* iron fist work well against cardusa?  Cage's tiles dont proc unless the ai casts something, but cardusa's strength is passive ap gen.  Do you just use cage yellow to smash through medusa's healing?

Firstly, my team is fully rainbow so I can avoid matching yellow while Carol still up. I use everything else, especially Hobo's blue. I especially deny red, so that Bl4de's passive can't proc.  If I can get either Hobo's black or C4ge's red going, Hobo's green is more of a shot of opportunity. Medusa will be the first to down.It usually is an OHK. Then Carol must go. Once Carol is down, Bl4de usually presents no problem. Care must be given in playing, especially when the board is full of red. But I've been quite successful in shutting down Cardusa in Sims thus far with the team of C4ge+Hobo+Medusa.

mohio

Astralgazer said:

Vhailorx said:

Why does c4ge + 4* iron fist work well against cardusa?  Cage's tiles dont proc unless the ai casts something, but cardusa's strength is passive ap gen.  Do you just use cage yellow to smash through medusa's healing?

Firstly, my team is fully rainbow so I can avoid matching yellow while Carol still up. I use everything else, especially Hobo's blue. I especially deny red, so that Bl4de's passive can't proc.  If I can get either Hobo's black or C4ge's red going, Hobo's green is more of a shot of opportunity. Medusa will be the first to down.It usually is an OHK. Then Carol must go. Once Carol is down, Bl4de usually presents no problem. Care must be given in playing, especially when the board is full of red. But I've been quite successful in shutting down Cardusa in Sims thus far with the team of C4ge+Hobo+Medusa.

I was under the impression (and I think vhailorx as well) that "Cardusa" is Carnage + Medusa + third. Hence why he asks about handling passive abilities since carnage/medusa can just sit there and special tile you to death without even using a single ability. 

aa25

Vhailorx said:

aa25 said:

Vhailorx said:

I can see a role for 4* r&g in the current meta.  He has free strikes (always good) and a permanent CD (hello coulson, new drax, carol, he, etc!).  But do people really think 4* gamora will be a meta character?  Her red is tinykitty and her black passive is unreliable at best.  Are her stun and purple special tile generation good enough to earn her a spot in the meta?

Her power set is very similar to Nova just in a different color set. She may not open a new meta like Carol or 4Groot, but she definitely has a place special tiles expert department, imo.

An interesting comparison.  I absolutely love nova, and have since i first read his details pre-release.  3 powers that cost 8 or less, all make strong strike tiles, plus a mix of direct damage and enemy disablement (quasi-stun).  

Gamora's stun definitely has similar value to nova red.  But i don't know about her other two powers.  Her red is worse than anything nova has.  And her black is. . .i dunno.  It's pricer than any of nova's powers, but not by much.  It makes a lot of pretty strong tiles, but does no direct damage (and it has the hard-to-value-passive).  

Huh, i will have to think about it some more, but maybe i need to adjust my expectations for her up a bit.

My 2 cents on Gamora vs. Nova.

First of all, I'm not saying Gamora is better than Nova or the other way around. I think they are on-par of each other.

TL;DR: I think Nova is more predictable than Gamora but has less self-synergy. Gamora is more on a chaotic side, but she can starts rolling fast and more self-sufficient. The differences are very small though.

Details in spoiler.

(Stats/number are from powers at 5 cover lv 270 from their character treads)

Gamora is a unique character in a sense that she is one of a few characters who can produce both attack and strike tiles by themselves, so she benefits from those strike tiles very quickly. It may not be a big deal in PvE since you have two other seats to choose from, but this is big in PvP when you essentially pick two and better if they both are boosted.

I don't think the passive on her black is that good. But the active part which make 6 attack or strike tiles are great. I don't have the numbers at hand, but that's probably one of the higher ones in term of special tile strength per ap ratio.

Nova's black cost 8 while Gamora's black cost 9. In the end you need to make 3 3-matches to use either of them. Speed-wise, they are identical to me. Exceptions are a rare case is when you can make 2 4-matches right away for Nova and when you use boosts.

Gamora also produce purple special tiles which is not her color. This is probably a small point, but it lets you keep collect ap and fire her power easier than Nova whose tiles are black. For Nova, you can either run him 5/5/3 and produce less amount and less beefy tiles, or stick with 5 black and risk having to match those tiles.

Gamora's red has a fine print on it. Her countdown procs at the end of your turn, so essentially this power deal 6227 per 10 ap from the first turn (as long as you are not unlucky that the move you make wipes the cd tile). 623 damage per ap is not bad, more on an average for 4* which can also double-dip strike tiles right away.

Gamora's blue. 3-turn stun for 6 ap is definitely spectacular. I think this one is better than Nova red. The first reason is, collecting another 6 blue ap within 3 turns is much more doable than 6 more red ap in two turns. So you can stun-lock the last opponent much easier. the second reason is, for strike/attack tiles meta, stunned enemies still take damage while airbourned do not which works better with her other two powers.

Lastly, their kill-move. Both Gamora and Nova has this one in common; produce enough tiles, and sacrifice them all for massive damage. Nova removes all friendly black strike tiles and deal 8119 damage for 8 ap which is not that good due to current power-creep these days. More and more characters can deal that much damage straight out of the box. But when you need it, it is still a good finish-the-match move and is easily executed. Gamora also removes all purple strike and attack tiles to insta-kill the enemy. Sadly, this power is not reliable since sometimes it procs at a wrong time or you cannot proc it when you need it.

Note: I still haven't get to run her that much. I'm still trying to convince myself that the 360k I spent on Mordo is not down the drain.
Note 2: I'm a fan of strike tiles meta, I may be biased a bit in what I posted.

Edit: add Note and Note2.

Vhailorx

Mordo is not a waste in that he will be around for months and you will get covers for him.  But other than that. . . he might get buffed?

And i also like the strike tile meta.  My gamora just hit 1/4/4.  Now curious to try her a bit in pve. . .

Calnexin

Bear in mind re: the meta - the teams you see when skipping are the teams left on defense, not necessarily the ones seeing the most use.  I don't know how many people use the top meta as their only team vs how many only drop it when they sign off without a shield - could be mostly everyone.  But for Medusa/Carnage, especially, it's tough to beat without eating health packs, and anything with Medusa + tile generator can get really drawn out time-wise.  That's bad news for either a random semi-unlucky board or players shield-hopping, so it's a great deterrent team against anyone that can't reliably destroy Medusa in the first half dozen turns.

Astralgazer

@Vhailorx @mohio

Ups. My bad. I rarely see Carnage+Medusa during my climb to 2000. On the contrary, I see Carol+Medusa everywhere. So, I just assumed that Cardusa is Carol+Medusa. In fact, after I started using Hobo+C4ge, I haven't had a chance to fight any Carnage+Medusa duo. I will update when I can.

Vhailorx

Astralgazer said:

@Vhailorx @mohio

Ups. My bad. I rarely see Carnage+Medusa during my climb to 2000. On the contrary, I see Carol+Medusa everywhere. So, I just assumed that Cardusa is Carol+Medusa. In fact, after I started using Hobo+C4ge, I haven't had a chance to fight any Carnage+Medusa duo. I will update when I can.

Ah, I see the miscommunication.

If you are going to fight carnage + medusa with that team I would recommend that you have some healthpacks ready to go!  It's not impossible to beat them by any means, but it can be long and bloody. . .