Hard counters and soft counters

over_clocked

*** Added on Mar 3rd: changes to 4or, MMN, Ragnarok, new characters: Iron Fist, Cyclops, Professor X, Kamala Khan, Kingpin.*
* Mystique change didn't affect her core gameplay.

While Northern Polarity has some great synergistic combos mentioned in The Comprehensive Guide to MPQ™, also see compatible teams by yogi and other forumites here, I'd like the boards to have a list of hard and soft counters to MPQ characters, too.
Hard counters mostly nullify your enemy's strengths and build on their weaknesses (usually requires full covers/builds).
Soft counters are same, but to a lesser extent. Are more conditional/less consistent.
If you feel that there's a mistake or a misbelief, you're welcome to offer your suggestions. The list is updated with new characters and community’s input.

General gameplay elements:

goon AP generation
Blade provides a strong counter, even with non-maxed Nightstalker, as you can often get several Nightstalker tiles out. oBW is perfect for quickly charging her colours against purple/blue generating goons. Hood's steal is viable as well if you can manipulate the board by matching colours that goons do not generate.
If goons generate AP for a character or two, you should stun the characters when they are ready to use their skills, so that goons place CDs instead. Best stuns are repeatable ones (like Daredevil, Captain America, 4or), or you can run MMN/IM 40 and any stunner on blue.

cascades
The best we currently have is Loki's Mischief (as long as the enemy creates a few coloured match-4s and match-5s) and Hood's countering TUp removal skills (Dormammu's Aid only steals coloured AP and is much stronger when there are few TUp tiles).

team-ups
Hard counter: classic Magneto destroys all TU tiles for 8 red (doesn’t earn AP though). NEW Cyclops converts TU tiles to red on 7 yellow.
Soft counter: Grocket destroys all TU tiles on a yellow match when under 25% health. Loki can steal TUAP.
Mohawk Storm shatters up to 7 TU tiles. Modern Storm, up to 6. She-Hulk and mHawkeye can drain TUAP but they are still too weak to use as core heroes.
It's worth mentioning that cheap (AoE) stun Team-Ups are your very best friend now as they can bail you out of many a dire situation (maxed Venom Symbiote Snare, maxed mBW Widow's Sting).
Enemy CD-based TUps are only deactivated upon the entire enemy team's defeat.

(high) match damage, unavoidable strike/attack tiles
Spider-Man, cMagneto, Luke Cage, Squirrel Girl, Bullseye, IM 35 for cheap/free protect tiles. Regenerating characters: Patch, Daken, Grocket, X-Force.

high cost abilities
(lazy)Thor, lazy Cap, Black Panther, GSBW, IM 40, Nick Fury, Deadpool, Colossus, Gamora, Luke Cage, etc.
The Hood, oBW, Loki hard-counter abilities that cost 10 and higher. Soft counters in Nick Fury, X-Force, Blade, Mystique (limited, random and/or delayed AP drain/steal). Weak counters in Psylocke, She-Hulk, modern Hawkeye. Star-Lord can delay enemy non-purple skills by 2 AP with his cheap red skill. NEW Kingpin has a skill that destroys enemy's strongest colour.

special tile dependent (non-trap)
Magneto MN, (lazy)Captain America, Psylocke, Colossus, Sentry, Blade, Star-Lord, all strike/attack/protect tile characters, goons, NEW Professor X, KIngpin, etc.
General: hard-countered by massive tile destruction, pinpoint tile destruction or tile overwriting characters (too many to list, but the likes of X-Force, Juggernaut, any Storm, GSBW, the Hood, She-Hulk, (lazy)Captain America, cHawkeye, Grocket, etc.).
Hard-countered by 4or (all types of tiles at 4 yellow).
Hard-countered by Falcon (all types of tiles), but only shines against strong and scarce tiles. Softens the impact of strike/attack tiles on purple.
Hard-countered by She-Hulk (all types of tiles), who can replace up to 3 special tiles with 2 friendly and 1 weak enemy strike tile.
Hard-countered by oBW (countdown tiles only). Hard-countered by Elektra (strike tiles only).
Hard-countered by Loki (protect and strike tiles only). But Loki can also get tricky CDs for you with Illusions.
Hard-countered by Daredevil and Squirrel Girl's purple skills (except CDs). DD destroys them and does damage for each, SG just does damage. Octopus creates attack tiles on matching any enemy tiles.
Star-Lord can overwrite any tile with his purple skill at 4 covers.
Captain Marvel hard-counters protect tiles with her red; the 3* version counters strong strike tiles with her yellow; the 2* might overwrite any and all tile with her cheap yellow.
Classic Magneto soft-counters all enemy special tiles with yellow at 5 covers and attack/strike/protect tiles otherwise.
The Hulk is good against powerful strike/attack tile characters (lots of Anger every turn). Anger is also amazing at green special tile removal.
Red special tile users like Psylocke, Dr Doom, Daken, Blade, A.Wolverine, Punisher, Elektra, etc.: same characters to hog red tiles, red tile destruction by HT, Sentry. The fastest red tile hog team: 5 green Blade/5 purple 3* Daken/A.Wolverine.
NEW Cyclops can be helpful in destroying red special tiles too (via his yellow), or randomly destroy tiles on his red. Iron Fist purple can help in destroying black special tiles. All MMN skills can be helpful in dealing with special tiles, his purple counters blue and red special tiles.

(semi-)consistent regeneration
(lazy)Daken, Patch, A.Wolverine, Grocket, NEW Ragnarok, Kamala Khan
Stuns, one shots, nukes, finishers (A.Wolverine, Deadpool, Patch, the Punisher, Ares, Human Torch, lazy Cap, 4or, NEW Doom, Cyclops, Luke Cage, etc.).
For Patch with less than 5 yellow, yellow wipeout (strong yellow users); for Daken, blue wipeout by Dr Doom/MMN and strong blue characters. NEW Kamala Khan can reduce either colour on the board.
Damage over time (strong attack tiles) also helps (Psylocke, Mohawk Storm, Doom again, Human Torch, the Punisher, Blade, Dr Octopus, NEWIron Fist, Professor X).
For A.Wolverine and Grocket, yellow match denial, for Grocket, TU wipeout as well (Polarizing Force, Mistress, mirror Grocket below 25% health, NEW Cyclops yellow).
NEWFor Ragnarok, deny blue AP and don't let him use his red often to charge blue (oBW, strong red/blue users).
Target Kamala first since she heals her team on each friendly skill use, unless you are denying AP perfectly (Hood/oBW/Loki).

high health
overscaled PvE, (lazy)Thor, the Hulk, She-Hulk, Colossus, Grocket, X-Force, Elektra, 4or, Devil Dino, Star-Lord, NEW Kingpin, etc.
Deadpool: 3300 damage for 6 red which is not shabby at all (mind you – best used early), plus a premiere purple AoE attack with or without DP points; DP points are a literal game-over button;
one shots by Patch with 5 red (make sure he tanks most colours);
Nick Fury's Demolition is very powerful and damage can be carried over to the next target. Use MMN or IM 40 to charge blue;
Berserker Rage + Anger; Berserker Rage/Battleplan + Rage of the Panther combo;
chained LC's Star-Spangled Avenger (LC + the Hood combo works extremely well);
X-Force’s Surgical Strike into X-Force or other skills on a good board;
chained Polarity Shift into Wind Storm + Speed Shot by MMN/cStorm/mHawkeye;
chained Power Surge into Smite by 4or;
chained Mystique/MMN powers (blue into purple into blue into black, etc.);
Squirrel Girl's green with strike tiles;
NEW Cyclops black fueled by his own yellow and black AP generators. Cyclops yellow can also be stellar with Daredevil's Ambush, and consistent self-triggering of Ambush is incredibly AP-efficient. Can add MMN for even better effect.
The Punisher can down any enemy at 40% health (maxed Retribution).

group healing
oBW, Spider-Man, She-Hulk, Beast, NEW Kamala Khan
oBW is hard-countered by characters with countdown tiles abilities, especially cheap/inexpensive ones like Human Torch, Falcon, the Punisher, Colossus, BP, Blade, Mystique, Luke Cage. Colossus/Mystique/Luke Cage/Star-Lord yellow only win from being delayed by oBW, too. Also countered with denial of blue by Dr Doom or possibly MMN.
NEW Kamala Khan should be targeted first if there are no AP stealers on the enemy team, as she heals on each enemy ability used. AP thieves are your friends.
Spider-Man, Beast and She-Hulk's heal is quite expensive at 11+ yellow/green, so unlikely to be fired in presence of cheaper yellow/green abilities, and frankly you should be grateful if the enemy team uses AP on their heal and not something deadlier. AP denial as it stands, remove Spider-Man's webtiles (if more than 2) and Beast's blue special tiles to make healing less potent.

(semi-)consistent AP stealing/draining
Hood, oBW, less so Blade, Mystique and Loki
Hard-countered by damaging passives: (lazy)Daken, Blade (and optionally Falcon/Dr Octopus), also mHawkeye’s Speed Shot and non-expensive damaging Team-Ups (Hood/oBW/Blade don’t steal TUAP as of now). Soft-countered by characters with low-cost nukes or early damage abilities: Ares, Gamora, Punisher, Deadpool, Human Torch, Psylocke, X-Force, etc. Hood is also countered by TUAP flooding (2* Miss Marvel). Blade, Mystique and Loki's steal relies on CDs which can be matched away/destroyed and, for Blade and Loki, delayed. Against Loki: do not make match-4s or match-5s unless they create enough AP for your skills to deal with Loki immediately.
Do not boost AP against AP thieves (especially Hood, and blue/purple against oBW) unless you are confident in your ability to take them out early.

stuns
Spider-Man, mBW, cStorm, mHawkeye, (lazy)Captain America, Captain Marvel, Venom, Daredevil, Mystique, 4or, Gamora, Luke Cage, etc.
Soft-countered by Dr Doom, Psylocke, the Punisher, Human Torch, m(ohawk)Storm, Dr Octopus, Blade, Elektra (attack tiles work through stun). Colossus Fastball Special ignores enemy stuns while in effect.
Hard-countered by blue/black AP denial (Dr Doom/MMN/oBW). In case of Venom, Mystique, Octopus, Gamora, purple/green as well.

AoE damage
Black Panther, cStorm, (lazy)Thor, Sentry, mHawkeye, GSBW, IM 40, Colossus, She-Hulk, Deadpool, 2* Miss Marvel, 4or, Gamora, goons, NEW Kamala Khan, Ragnarok, etc.
The Hulk, Captain Marvel, cStorm all have passives that are good against AoE attacks.
Elektra can shield herself from any incoming damage on black.
Soft-countered by healers (oBW, Spider-Man, She-Hulk, Beast) since they can 'undo' the damage done.
Colossus can 'shield' a chosen teammate from an incoming AoE attack for 13 black AP by making them airborne. This is one of the few cases where you don't necessarily want to max the cover since lower levels allow longer immunity as long as Colossus is alive.

traps
Daredevil, Nick Fury, Elektra, Dr Doom, goons
Skills that smash big parts of the board can be helpful: Surgical Strike, X-Force, Lightning Strike/Storm, Unstoppable Crash, Magnetic Flux/Iron Hammer, Twin Pistols, Sniper Rifle, Pistol, etc.
M(ohawk)Storm hard-counters all traps with her wide area effect black. Falcon/Human Torch/Sentry/cMagneto soft-counter traps with their wide area effect purple/black/green/yellow. 4or can disarm enemy traps randomly if on blue/red/yellow tiles.
Daredevil, Elektra: hard-countered on red by Blade, Daken, Human Torch, Sentry, A.Wolverine, Psylocke, Punisher, Dr Doom, 4or, NEW Iron Fist, Luke Cage.
Dr Doom only lays purple traps, so characters that can destroy/hog purple tiles work well: Patch, Spider-Man, Bullseye, Blade, Elektra, mHawkeye, mirror Doom. Surgical Strike if the enemy has highest purple, too. Mystique can help in cascading a lot of purple traps away on blue (mind that she can charge purple/black AP for both teams that way).

colour conversion/tile conversion
(lazy)Thor, Hulk, Dr Doom, Mystique, MMN, GSBW, 2* Miss Marvel, NEW Cyclops, Iron FIst, etc.
Traps survive being colour-changed (including being converted to TUp tiles) as long as the traps aren't destroyed or overwritten with enemy special tiles, which may be very handy against opponents that can add a lot of tiles of one type to the board, as it raises the chances of triggering traps.
Mirror characters can help in removing most of the colour from the board prior to the enemy conversion, especially accurate ones like GSBW and MMN or complete ones like Dr Doom. All of them only convert basic colour tiles so special tile spam can help (Falcon, cMagneto, Human Torch, Daken, m(ohawk) Storm, Sentry, etc).
NEW Cyclops and 2* Miss Marvel can be countered by TU tile removal skills (cMagneto, m(ohawk)Storm, Grocket), Iron Fist by Kamala Khan removing most of the black tiles.

tile wipeout
classic Magneto and Grocket (TUp), X-Force (enemy's strongest colour), Dr Doom (basic blue), minorly m(ohawk)Storm (TUp), Sentry (red)
Remove most of the colour to be wiped out, against cMagneto/Grocket - TUp tiles, so mirror cMagneto, Grocket or m(ohawk)Storm; against X-Force's Surgical Strike, check for your team's strongest colour and remove as much of it as possible, or try to spend the AP of that colour ASAP for it not to be stolen from you/drained in vain. Against Doom, disrupt blue matches adjacent to black tiles so that they don't turn into black matches.

charged tiles
4or, Ragnarok
A double-edged sword so can be taken advantage of. Board smashing, AP-generating abilities help in that: Lightning Strike/Storm (all Storms), Surgical Strike (X-Force), Polarity Shift and Magnetic Flux (MMN), Deceptive Tactics (GSBW), Technopathic Strike (Dr Doom). Although MMN, GSBW and Doom do not convert charged tiles, they can still pick them up in cascades, and MMN/Doom also deny blue AP to 4or/Ragnarok.

Mirror counters:

oBW (Espionage) classic Storm (Raging Tempest) (lazy)Daken (Pheromone Rage)
the Hulk (Anger) Spider-Man (All Tied Up) m(ohawk)Storm (Mistress of the Elements, Hailstorm)
Loki (Trickery) Human Torch (Fireball, Inferno) classic Magneto (Polarizing Force)
XF (Surgical Strike) the Hood (Dormammu’s Aid) Captain America (Star-Spangled Avenger, Peacemaker)
Blade (The Thirst) 4or (charged tiles) Rocket and Groot (I Am Groot)
Elektra (Double Double-Cross, Shadow Step) Dr Doom (all skills) Star-Lord (all skills)
NEW Cyclops (Mutant Revolutionary) Professor X (protect tiles/invisibility versus incredible strike/attack tiles)

Counters to popular characters:

X-Force
PvP: mirror X-Force, Mystique to steal/drain RGY AP, lazy Thor, lazy Cap, etc.
Doesn’t regen passively, so can be dealt with early.
Surgical Strike is his alpha nuke, so defend against it. Characters with strongest purple/blue colours (Elektra, Deadpool, Daredevil, Star-Lord, GSBW, classic Magneto, She-Hulk, etc.), can be useful against him: purple and blue are rarely represented on damaging abilities or represented at all. Characters with strongest black (Punisher, Daken, Blade, NEW Kingpin) can both be useful or a liability; if Surgical Strike fails to kill them, X-Force can't use it again for a while due to the board lacking black, but if he downs the character and switches targets, he can SS again almost immediately.
NEW If your strongest colour isn't green and you're facing Surgical Strike, Kamala Khan can remove most of the colour from the board.
Recovery should be killed by any tile destroying/overwriting ability (Storm, LC, Falcon, etc), matched or delayed.

4or
PvP: mirror 4or, X-Force, cMagneto, Mystique to steal/drain RGY AP, Blade to steal red, AP denial with Hood/oBW/Loki, stuns.
PvE: X-Force, Storm, Dr Doom, GSBW, MMN, Loki to collect/destroy charged tiles with cascades.
Strong red and blue users (cMagneto, LC, for example). Dr Doom/MMN to deny blue.
Red tile hog teams to deny efficient charging of red tiles (Daken/Blade/Dr Doom, etc.). NEW You can take advantage of 4or blue by running your own red/blue generators: MMN, Cyclops, Ragnarok.

the Hood/original Black Widow/Loki
Mirror Hood/oBW, X-Force (X-Force), (lazy)Daken, Falcon, Blade, NEW Iron Fist. Damage boosts are your best friend.
Early non-expensive damage works well: Deadpool, the Punisher, Psylocke, Human Torch, Ares, X-Force, Gamora, etc.
mHawkeye with a lucky early trigger of Speed Shot can help dispatch the AP thieves quickly. Hood is also countered by TUAP flooding (2* Miss Marvel).

Patch
PvP: X-Force (Surgical Strike into X-Force), the Hulk (Anger), cMagneto (Coercive Field), lazy Thor (Thunder Strike), lazy Cap, Mystique to steal/drain RGY AP, 4or, Loki, Daredevil, Elektra.
PvE: Spider-Man, Falcon, GSBW (Deceptive Tactics to remove green strike tiles, Sniper Rifle to remove several special tiles), Squirrel Girl (has the use for green AP, can do damage for enemy strike tiles, can dip on Patch-provided tiles).
Classic Storm with Raging Tempest, enhanced by Patch-provided strike tiles; She-Hulk with Settlement.
oBW can double-dip on Patch-provided strike tiles and turn the tides.
The Hood can remove at least 2 special tiles reliably, usually more.
Long stuns to counter the regen.
Deadpool can make short work of the regen and halve Patch's lifebar.
NEW Kamala Khan can remove green special tiles or counter healing if Patch has less than 5 yellow by converting yellow tiles on the board.

(lazy)Thor/Black Panther
Both hit like a freight train, so the Hood, oBW, Loki for AP denial.
Bring your own yellow/green/black users.
The Hulk/Captain Marvel to counter the strike tiles and the AoE (cStorm if buffed).
Classic Magneto/m(ohawk)Storm/Grocket to deny TUAP for stronger Battleplan. Mystique to steal/drain Thor's RGY AP and mess the board for him.

Dr Doom
Red tile hog teams to prevent powerful Demons (Daken/Blade/A.Wolvie/Psylocke, etc.), remember that Daken is vulnerable to Doom blue. oBW for purple/blue/black denial. MMN for picking up most blue tiles. Mystique for converting most purple traps away (mind the enemy getting more purple/black AP).
Purple tile hog teams: Bullseye, Spider-Man, Patch, Elektra, Blade. Mirror Doom to disarm enemy traps.

classic Magneto
PvP: mirror cMagneto, LC, 4or (heavy red and blue users).
oBW denies blue. M(ohawk)Storm and Grocket destroy TU tiles that Magneto relies on to deal damage with red. Captain Marvel destroys protect tiles. Skills that wipe out blue/red tiles counter Magnetized Projectiles: Polarity Shift, Technopathic Strike, Supernova, possibly Surgical Strike, etc.

the Hulk
PvP: mirror Hulk, Patch (maxed Best There Is. Berserker Rage is really risky against Hulk), X-Force (Surgical Strike into X-Force), lazy Cap, 4or to stun and nuke, Mystique to steal/drain RGY AP.
Only really dangerous if you rely mostly on strong strike/attack tiles for damage. Basically, anyone able of one-shotting the Hulk, like Patch with 5 red, X-Force, 4or, Nick Fury, etc.
Anger can be easily avoided if you stun the Hulk just before dishing out your damage on him. If the enemy team has black as their strongest colour thanks to Blade/Punisher/Daken, Surgical Strike will erase all black tiles thus preventing or negating Anger.
Soft-countered by (lazy)Thor and GSBW who can use the Hulk's green generation to their own advantage.

(lazy)Daken
PvP: mirror Daken, the Hulk, lazy Cap, Patch, cMagneto, 4or, Loki, Daredevil, Elektra, Luke Cage.
PvE: Falcon, Spider-Man, Dr Doom, Dr Octopus, Squirrel Girl, MMN.
Strong blue users, Dr Doom to stifle the regen. Doom, A.Wolverine, mirror Daken, Blade and Psylocke to occupy red tiles with their own special tiles.
Deadpool can make short work of the regen and halve Daken's lifebar. Passive regen (Patch/Daken) punches through the strike tiles.
Countered by the Hulk (Anger). Soft-countered by She-Hulk and Captain Marvel, hard-countered by Loki on strike tiles.
NEW MMN now counters both healing and strike tiles due to being able to take away blue tiles and destroy strike tiles via matches.

NEW Luke Cage and Iron Fist
Cage: Daken, Blade, Fist, Psylocke, Professor X, etc.
Fist: Spider-Man, Cage, Squirrel Girl, Bullseye, Kamala Khan, Professor X, etc.
Cage: bring strike/attack tiles against Cage since your match damage will be severely reduced. Denial of yellow, black is not as dangerous but mind black generators (Doom, Mystique, Fist).
Fist: bring protect tiles and do not run frail characters against Fist if you can't focus him early, try to deny purple, especially if there are strong black users on the team, but his purple can also be devastating if he collects 12 black. Kamala can counter his black tile spam by reducing the number of the black tiles.

Blade
Mirror Blade, (lazy)Daken, Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra, Squirrel Girl, etc.
Be very careful against 5 green Blades, especially if they have 5 purple as well. Remove red matches from the board to avoid triggering The Thirst. HT, Sentry can remove red tiles from the board. Tile overwriting characters like LC, Grocket and Star-Lord can also lessen the amount of red on a board. MMN and Cyclops are not recommended against Blade.

Ares
cStorm, the Hulk, Captain Marvel to counter the AoE damage. Bring a (tank/regen) green user to counter Onslaught; tile overwrite/destruction characters to remove Sunder CD if needed. Mystique to steal/drain RGY AP.

Tricky things to counter

low cost abilities (5-6 AP)
green - Ares, A.Wolverine, Juggernaut, Human Torch (harmless at 5-6 AP though)
black - Psylocke, Luke Cage (not very harmful on first use), NEW Kingpin
blue – (lazy)Daken, Falcon (passive), Spider-Man
red - Deadpool, Juggernaut, Ragnarok, Psylocke (conditional), Gamora
purple - Loki, Venom (can cost 4), Devil Dino (costs 3), NEW Iron Fist
Star-Lord can reduce his team's AP costs by 2 for all non-black skills so be careful when fighting him!
Your best counter is to have highly usable abilities in those colours and be willing to weather some cascades, damage and inconveniences no matter how well you are able to deny. Combined AP denial from the oBW/Hood/Loki can possibly nullify any and all active enemy abilities except those that cost 3-5 AP. You can also make Patch/Daken/X-Force/the Hulk/Captain Marvel/Colossus/Deadpool/Elektra tank for squishier characters and negate the bulk of the damage or benefit from it.
Star-Lord can also delay enemy non-purple skills by 2 AP, so you can bring him to reduce the threat from the likes of Juggernaut, Ragnarok, Ares, Daken, Psylocke, etc.

passive special tile abilities
(lazy)Daken - red strike tiles on all green matches; Blade - creates red strike tiles with 10-11 red tiles present
Spider-Man, Bullseye - purple protect tiles on purple matches
Falcon - enhances attack/strike/protect tiles on yellow matches
Luke Cage - creates a red protect tile each time there's none
NEW Iron Fist - creates a green attack tile each time there's none
Professor X - creates many special tiles, an invisibility tile that targets him, improves tiles on his matches
Dr Octopus - creates black attack tiles on an enemy special tile match
Your best counter is to bring regen/tank against Daken and try to pick up green without actually matching green (e.g. 4, 5-of-a-kind matches), or match green and not match red, allowing strike tiles to be allotted close to each other. Classic counter is to stun Daken when you need to match green or don't want him to regen. Elektra and Daredevil are both strong counters to Daken/Blade/Patch/Punisher/Gamora/NEW Iron Fist/Professor X, etc on their purple skills.
Match/destroy red tiles and hog other red tiles with your own strike tiles, so Human Torch/Daken work well against Daken/Blade, for example.
Protect tiles are rather weak currently, so just proceed to collect AP for abilities and rather deal damage with them, not with match damage. Strong strike tiles are your best friend, too. You can't do anything against Luke Cage's red passive short of stunning him the entire game, and that's backwards due to his other powers taking much longer to get going.
While Falcon is not all that popular in PvP, you probably need a good yellow user to make the most from denying yellow matches to the enemy team. Burst down Falcon first priority as besides yellow he will eat your team's special tiles which are rather precious unless you run Daken yourself.
Loki is very helpful against overscaled Daken/Bullseye (and rare Falcons, too) in Story mode.
NEW Professor X is incredibly hard to deal with if he uses Invisibility, make sure to bring a lot of board smash and cascade options (Loki, Storms, GSBW, X-Force, Juggernaut, etc.) or tile overwriters (Captain America, Star-Lord). The only form of damage to punch through invisibilty is AoE.
Dr Octopus soft-counters abilities that create a lot of special tiles (Daken, Sentry, Human Torch, m(ohawk)Storm, Falcon, etc.), and attack tiles trigger every turn despite being stunned, for example, so keep that in mind.

passive retribution/avoidance
cStorm, the Hulk, Captain Marvel, Deadpool
For all these characters, try to one-shot/stun them before you are ready to hit them/their teammate or do a big AoE to their team. Deadpool is the only one not to trigger for an AoE but for damage to a squishier teammate.
cStorm and Deadpool often demand to be taken out first/second priority, as otherwise cStorm can kill your entire team in retribution and Deadpool can interfere and cover for his other teammates. Always check if your AoE ability will indeed down cStorm.
Hulk and Captain Marvel should be dealt with last priority unless their team has no other users on green/red/black.
For Hulk/Captain Marvel and cStorm as well if she's not the first target, avoid early strike tile damage because if you cascade you might hurt your own team more than you would like. Avoid using Berserker Rage against these 3 unless it will kill them.
Hulk and Deadpool's black CD tiles can be matched away but they are very fast (1 turn).

AP stealers
the Hood, oBW on Espionage, Loki
Against the Hood: try not to match colours you don't need for burst attacks. Try to avoid 4, 5-matches and break them up for 3-matches of the colour you need most. Never bring an all-expensive team (like LT/BP/IM 40/lazyCap/GSBW/Nick Fury) against the Hood, your need some early damage urgently.
Try NOT to use Mistress of the Elements/Polarizing Force/I Am Groot if it won't kill the Hood since these abilities only make Dormammu's Aid much stronger. 2* Miss Marvel can flood the board with TUAP which weakens Dormammu's Aid.
Against oBW: if you don't have your own oBW and the board is rich with purple, try to only collect TUAP/colours that the enemy cannot use OR purple if the enemy cannot Recon purple, and let the enemy fire an early Recon. Otherwise you can afford to let oBW make purple matches, but not get enough for Recon, while you kill her with match damage or collect AP for a burst attack. You can afford her to collect blue if you can kill her fast enough, or have cheap CD abilities like Molotov, Flame Jet or Redwing. Cheap CD abilities that only benefit from enemy oBW blue: Shapeshift (Mystique), Immovable Object (Colossus), Jab, Jab, Cross (Luke Cage), Everyone With Me (Star-Lord).
Against Loki: avoid making match-4s and match-5s! If you do manage to set Mischief off, have a backup plan: board shakeup, tile overwrite, CD delaying. Or just don't have any AP to steal (cheap skills, skills that drain your AP).

Ode to Surgical Strike

Not only is it an awesome core ability but also a direct counter to a ton of skills/characters.

Examples to follow:
Muscles and Thugs and Dons have 1000000 yellow CD and strike tiles out to get you? Surgical Strike to remove all yellow tiles/drain their yellow AP.
Edit: Same for Pyros, Assassins, Snipers, Grenadiers, etc. with their huge damage green CDs.
Hood and Luke Cage are about to use their huge damage yellow skills? Surgical Strike to drain their yellow AP.
Black Panther, Invisible Woman, Captain America and Colossus have used their yellow abilities and have their strong yellow special tiles out? Surgical Strike to remove all yellow tiles/drain their yellow AP.
Bullseye has flooded the field with his protect tiles? Surgical Strike to remove all purple tiles.
oBW, Moonstone, Loki, Mystique and Deadpool out to get you on a board rich with purple? Surgical Strike to remove all purple tiles/drain their purple AP.
Sentry is ready to Supernova you to smithereens? Surgical Strike to remove all red tiles/drain his red AP.
4or ready to Smite you? Surgical Strike to remove all red tiles/drain her red AP.
Human Torch ready to Fireball you and charge 2 red for his next one? Surgical Strike to remove all red tiles/drain his red AP.
Classic Magneto is about to throw Magnetized Projectiles at you? Surgical Strike to remove all blue tiles/drain his blue AP. Also works if he has a partner with strongest red like Sentry/Thor/HT/Psylocke, etc.
Dr Doom is about to use Technopathic Strike on you and the board is filled with blue to boot? Surgical Strike to remove all blue tiles/drain his blue AP.

The best part is this:
Ares is about to Onslaught you? Well, why wait for him to give you green. Surgical Strike to remove all green tiles/drain his green AP AND charge your next X-Force.
Patch has used Berserker Rage and has green strike tiles out or is about to use BR? Surgical Strike to remove all green tiles/drain his green AP AND charge your next X-Force.
Hulk is very, very Angry and has flooded the board with green? Surgical Strike to remove all green tiles, drain his green AP and do massive damage AND charge your next X-Force.
Enemy X-Force is about to X-Force/Surgical Strike you? Surgical Strike to remove all green tiles, drain his green AP AND charge your next X-Force.

Et cetera, et cetera.

Not everyone has a playable X-Force with 5 black covers.
But you can still use even the 1 black cover since it removes ALL tiles of the enemy's strongest colour at base level and at cover one; besides, more joy for you in earning X-Force team-ups since you can use them more often than us X-Force owners

Nota bene: characters with primary colours that don't match their first ability: Venom (green), Daken (black), mHawkeye (purple), Deadpool (purple), GSBW (purple), Loki (purple), cMagneto (blue), Dr Doom (blue).

Spoit

Why don't you mention OBW? She's like 90% as good as the hood at AP Denial.

I'm skeptical c.storm is really that effective a counter against AoE, since her yellow really doesn't do that much damage any more.

And half you suggestions for countering patch are just feeding him more green to cast it again anyway!

Unknown

Would group healers like Spider-Man and OBW be considered soft counters to AoE?
I mean, I guess healing is a soft counter to anything, but it will have a larger net effect against an AoE than a strong single target attack.

Unknown

You can shut down Hulk's anger with a good stunner like CStorm. Probably paired with a blue generator.

over_clocked

Spoit wrote:

Why don't you mention OBW? She's like 90% as good as the hood at AP Denial.

I'm skeptical c.storm is really that effective a counter against AoE, since her yellow really doesn't do that much damage any more.

And half you suggestions for countering patch are just feeding him more green to cast it again anyway!

1) oBW is mentioned, I guess I will add her alongside Hood since they counter the same type of opponents well.
2) It's something! At least you have to be mindful and kill cStorm before you use one of your AoE powers if it's not going to kill her, because she might Tempest too bad.
3) Just collected user opinions. Mind you, we're mostly talking about AI opponents who are not smart, but sometimes they are stupid powerful so the best that can be done is utilize their strengths.

wharrrgarbl wrote:

Would group healers like Spider-Man and OBW be considered soft counters to AoE?
I mean, I guess healing is a soft counter to anything, but it will have a larger net effect against an AoE than a strong single target attack.

I guess it is! Thanks. And they counter each other.

KevinMark wrote:

You can shut down Hulk's anger with a good stunner like CStorm. Probably paired with a blue generator.

Since stunning is the answer to anything (Daken, Hood's passive, regen, etc.) I didn't really want to include that, but I guess I will now.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Black Panther
The Hood, oBW for AP denial, cStorm to counter AoE damage.

cStorm won't survive a maxed BP nuke even at full health.

Mawtful

Regalis wrote:

locked wrote:

Black Panther
The Hood, oBW for AP denial, cStorm to counter AoE damage.

cStorm won't survive a maxed BP nuke even at full health.

Even at rank 4, maxed BP Black is enough to OHKO CStorm.

Unknown

mHawkeye cant avoid cstorms windstorm if targeted

over_clocked

Regalis wrote:

locked wrote:

Black Panther
The Hood, oBW for AP denial, cStorm to counter AoE damage.

cStorm won't survive a maxed BP nuke even at full health.

Maybe if cStorm is buffed/is against an unleveled BP. But I will remove her from that list.

nublit wrote:

mHawkeye cant avoid cstorms windstorm if targeted

Yes, that's why I noted 'mHawkeye can avoid AoE damage unless stunned'.

Unknown

Captain Obvious presents...

And yes, universal counter versus all types enemies is one-shot / huge damage / quick kill. Мёртвые не потееют. И не идут играть в баскетбол.

locked wrote:

group healing
oBW, Spider-Man
Countered with denial of blue, so soft-countered by Doctor Doom and cMagneto (both of whom are able to remove all the blue matches/tiles for quite some time).

Objection! Versus OBW ideal and easily accessible counters is chars with cheap CT tiles skills (example, Punisher or Silver Magneto). Half-heal is waste of AP. Versus Webhead — heroes, which may destroy / overwrite web tiles (board cleaners, Caps, Venom, Spidey himself, even Bag-Man). Without them his base heal is very poor.

locked wrote:

Counters to popular PvP characters:

Best counter versus Patch is OBW. She steal AP before Berserker Rage and deals double damage after.

Best counters versus Hulk is Patch with 5 red (finisher move or two good strike tiles, which don't activate Anger even with 5 black OBW) or 3/5/5 Lazy Cap (stun + huge re-peat damage).

Black Panther — Doom if use his skills smart (like in comics, lol).

over_clocked

Could you please stop using Russian, OTERSEY? Not like most people can understand you here. I will add your input, although you have to have in mind that most players don't have all the characters, so they have to work with available ones. Otherwise, stun/Magnetic Field/one shot abilities are the answer to everything and there's no incentive to play if you don't have that.

Edit:

OTERSEY wrote:

Black Panther — Doom if use his skills smart (like in comics, lol).

Could you elaborate on that? Giving Black Panther a field full of black doesn't seem a very good idea...

Unknown

AP steal is not a counter to any specific kind of ability. Sure AR usually will prevent a Call the Storm, but it'll also prevent the second Judgment. Since you don't win the game with a single casting of a cheap ability it rarely matters what order you prevented these abilities in.

The only meaningful interaction between characters at the top are:

Thor dominates Patch (Thunder Strike wipes out Berserker Rage tiles).
Falcon, Magneto, and to a lesser extent Captain America dominates CD dependent characters.
Hulk is strong versus strike tiles (to trigger Anger).

Unknown

locked wrote:

consistent regeneration
(lazy)Daken, Patch
The less boring answer would be one shots and nukes (A.Wolverine, Patch, Ares, (lazy)Thor, Black Panther, Human Torch, lazyCap, etc.).

Stuns will also shut off the regeneration for their duration.

over_clocked

Muspel wrote:

locked wrote:

consistent regeneration
(lazy)Daken, Patch
The less boring answer would be one shots and nukes (A.Wolverine, Patch, Ares, (lazy)Thor, Black Panther, Human Torch, lazyCap, etc.).

Stuns will also shut off the regeneration for their duration.

Why do you think I wrote 'the less boring answer'? I mentioned in the preface that Spider-Man and cMagneto are perfect counters to everything. But we can't expect this to last.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Could you please stop using Russian, OTERSEY? Not like most people can understand you here. I will add your input, although you have to have in mind that most players don't have all the characters, so they have to work with available ones. Otherwise, stun/Magnetic Field/one shot abilities are the answer to everything and there's no incentive to play if you don't have that.

Edit:

OTERSEY wrote:

Black Panther — Doom if use his skills smart (like in comics, lol).

Could you elaborate on that? Giving Black Panther a field full of black doesn't seem a very good idea...

I thought it was pretty easy to understand, and I don't even speak Russian.

OTERSEY wrote:

Captain Obvious presents...

And yes, universal counter versus all types enemies is one-shot / huge damage / quick kill. Мёртвые не потееют. И не идут играть в баскетбол.

(like in comics, lol).

He said "Magneto is nottyhot (I guess mags is his jam). And he is neither overpowered or a bracketoon..... ...... Broken. So OTERSEY is listening to Barry White while whispering sweet nothings into magneto's helmet and telling him its okay, you aren't broken... If you were, I would fix you...let me fix you... ..... AANNNNDDDD. IIIIIIIIIII..... ILL AAALLWWAAYYSS LOOOVEE YOOUU.I will always love you. Oh, does nottyheart mean sweetheart?

over_clocked

Hey, Russian is my first language. I just thought these boards were English-only?

Unknown

imo, i feel classic storm's yellow passive can kind of counter punisher's black too. And also, classic storm's yellow passive counters into itself (when both teams having classic storm).
Daken can kind of counter doctor's doom's black skill ? and OBW can obviously counter CD tiles with her blue skill. Many many more etc etc....

over_clocked

Indeed, Daken soft-counters Doom with his red tiles hogging. But other points have been included already.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Muspel wrote:

locked wrote:

consistent regeneration
(lazy)Daken, Patch
The less boring answer would be one shots and nukes (A.Wolverine, Patch, Ares, (lazy)Thor, Black Panther, Human Torch, lazyCap, etc.).

Stuns will also shut off the regeneration for their duration.

Why do you think I wrote 'the less boring answer'? I mentioned in the preface that Spider-Man and cMagneto are perfect counters to everything. But we can't expect this to last.

There are more characters that have stuns. It's not entirely obvious that stunning a character disables their passive, so it's worth noting.

over_clocked

updated with the Sentry, some lazyDaken and Spidey nerfage

over_clocked

The arrival of Mohawk Storm pretty much hoses Sentry's World Rupture in TWO ways at once, not to mention some other special tile dependent abilities: LC's red/blue, HT's black/green, Psylocke's everything. Cascade-o-tron Mistress also strengthens the Hood/BP for EAP collecting and making AP steal more effective for the former.
And yes Daredevil/GSBW (tile clearing) got even less relevant.