How your "essential" team changed over time?

kk3thess

We always talk about the best characters and the best teams, but sometimes the individual experience can make us have different paths before getting the best characters and teams. 

With that in mind, I want to know how your "essential" team changed over time. I'll start with mine.

#1 - 2* Storm, 2* Bullseye and 2* Thor

2 AOE powers, Storm's stun, Bullseye protect tiles and critic (when I could pull off that), rainbow team and Thor feeding himself with Yellow and Green AP. It looked like a invincible team until...

#2 - 3* Iron First, 3* Cyclops and 3* Black Panther

That precious attack tile from IF, the cheap purple that could feed both black Cyke and BPs (one-shot and AOE), BPs protect and strike tiles, Cyke's red nuke and cheap yellow. It was a team with diverse strategies and it helped that RNG kept giving me a lot of covers for them to the point where 40 lvls above everyone else.

#3 - Kamala Khan, 3* Human Torch and IM40

When I leveled my 3* characters better and tried some teams, this one really stood out. Khan's burst team healing and AOE, IM40 battery and blue AOE, Human Torch generous red and occasionally satisfying black kinda guaranteed a win in my battles. I continued playing with them for a long time. But then...

#4 - 3* Iron First, 3* Cyclops and Strang3

Changing Panth3r for Strange truly elevate this team. Now every single character had it's specific function and IF attack with Strange's passive gave me some comfortable start in the battles.


#5 - 4* Grocket, 3* Gamora and 3* Iron First

IF is my profile pic for a reason haha. Again, his attack tile is precious in this combination for obvious reasons, and his purple feeds Gamora's black with his green putting a little more strikes tiles on the board. Gamora's cheap read with the generous damage boost from the strike tiles can be pretty lethal sometimes. Grocket's passive yellow give the team a considerable head star and his blue spammer is incredible (even if sometimes it can nullifies IF's attack tile)

And since I'm on the very beginning of my transition to the 4* land, that's pretty much it. But how about you? What were the combinations that were your "essential" team and how it changed over time?

TPF Alexis

2*: Thor, Magneto, Storm. In part because Storm was lower level than the others by enough that she didn't tank anything, which got around the problem of her tiny health pool.

3*: Kind of hard to remember, but I think I mostly leaned on Khan, Steve, and Strange. Khan and Steve were my two highest level 3*, and Strange was just such a game-changer that he had a solid place in my teams for quite a long time.

4* Transition: Medusa, Wasp, 3* Falcon. I loved this team. Still bust it out sometimes, especially when Flying Sam is boosted. Takes a while to get going, but once it does, it's pretty much unstoppable. Huge Strikes and Protects, double-dipping on the Strikes and healing thanks to Medusa, Enemy Special tile removal from Redwing, and the occasional nuke when an Enemy matched Wasp's countdown.

4*: Things diversified a lot once I got solidly into 4* territory. Grockamoradusa make plenty of appearances, but C4ge and HoboFist are so good together that I tend to run them a lot, and then there are a bunch of "plug and play" staples like Vulture, Riri, Rogue, C&D, and Chavez who end up getting mixed and matched depending on what the enemy team is and who's boosted.

Pr0spect0r

Uhh two stars it was just whatever was alive at the time. Only now do I use storm, Hawkeye, mageneto.

3star it was strange, im40, and idk some rando most likely. I just remember using iron man and strange cuz the only things that kept people alive. The next fun one was medusa, patch, and wasp I think. Patch was the only well covered one in that team but my God when you steal those tiles back or match half of them away it made life easy. Now its brain dead grocket, medusa, gamora or okoye america

Borstock

2 - Storm, Mags, Hawkeye

3 - IM, Grey Widow, Mags

4 - Tougher because there was overlap with 3's and 5's. But a 4-team I ran a lot was Carnage, Medusa, Mr. F

5 - Thor, Okoye, Widow or JJ

CT1888

In 2* play Thor/Magneto/Storm got a lot of love from me, Ares/Widow+1 being another staple.

Breaking into 3* land, it was Thor/GSBW that carried me. Once established SWitch/Cage/Fist was one of my go to teams, just so much kicking and punching going on there. There was Hulk Bombing a plenty with Kamala in tow

Transitioning to 4* it was Charlie's Angels, then SWitch/Jean Grey, then came Jean Buster and Fist Buster often with SWitch in tow and 4Thor/3*Ironman.

Once fully into 4*, I still relied heavily heavily on Jean and SWitch (Sabrina - the Teenage / Witch combo) for pve, but pvp was all about who was champed and boosted at the same time. Towards the end I would turn to Carol/Coulson/Medusa to deal with some tricky nodes.

I broke into 5* land with Panthos, so they were essential for quite some time, until Daredevil pushed Black Panther to one side, then came Gambit who was essential by himself, then JJ/Thor and now Okoye/Thor. But Thanos/Grocket/5tarlord is essential for when I want to get a clear done quick. Though once I champ Kitty, 5tarlord may not come out so often. 

spidyjedi84

2*: Cap Marvel, Hawkeye and either Thor or Ares. All rainbow teams. Sonic boom's AoE, Thors Call the Storm and Speed Shot clear the board fast. These days, I tend to use Hawkeye and two other characters and only for the two waves of DDQ.

3*: Doc Strange, Iron Man 40 and Squirrel Girl/Kamala Khan. I'd ignore black tiles in these teams, but the reactionary Strange, cheap tile generation and a few different nuke options helped through many PVE nodes.

4*: Grocket, Gamora and America Chavez/Nico Minoru. This is a rainbow team, (minus the purple tiles). Grockets tiles with Nico get boosted steadily over the course of matches, a cheap stun and chances for some good nukes hit the enemy team hard. The 4* have a lot of different team ups that benefit from Grocket and Gamora, so the third seat is sometimes whomever is boosted for the week. L4ke Cage and Hobo Fist are an amazing duo, too, and with Shuri, they can waltz over enemies quickly.

Not in 5* tier yet to a solid degree to say what team works best for me.

tiomono

2* has pretty much always been daken wolvie and widow. 

3* I rocked Kamala, psylocke, hood. This team routinely took out 4* teams.

4* carol and wasp with x-23 thrown in to tank while healing. 

Now I have daredevil champed as my only 5*. I run vulture sandman, or cloak and dagger with valkyrie, bounties collect yellow so dagger keeps throwing out the aoe's.

Dormammu

I never had a go-to 2-star team. Didn't spend long at that tier.

My first 3-star team was Ragnarok. He didn't need anyone else. If he was banged up I'd use Magneto; he didn't need anyone else either. After they were (justifiably) nerfed I leaned on Spider-Man, Punisher, and Psylocke. Now, I know what you're thinking, but this team ruled the MPQ meta at one time.

My transition into 4-star land was XFW, Magneto, and Loki after XFW became my first 4-star champ.

When Dr. Strange came along I was into 4-star land but back-peddled a little bit and used a lot of Dr. Strange, IM40, and Patch against (scaled) PvE goons. They were better than any 4-star team I could field.

Like @TPF Alexis my 4-star career overall was quite varied, but Peggy and Moon Knight (fueled by IM40) got me through a nice chunk of it. Cardusa after them. They were followed by Grocket/Gamora/Medusa (just like everyone else).

randomhero1090

2* still is Ares, Storm, Mags.  Purple gens blue.  Ares feeds off basically everything else.  Lots of AOE hits.

3* was IM40/Strange/KK.  Solid color coverage, good synergy, 2 types of healing, stuns, AOE...  still a great team especially if 1 or 2 of them are boosted.

4* transition period - I got a nicely covered Vulture early.  I think it was 4/3/5 or something.  Level ~200.  I started riding that green AOE wave along with Strang3's blue.  A really nice team when I started seeing champed 4s in PVP and shield.

4* is GrockGamDusa land all day long.

The combo platter team I found after GGD is Chavez/Hood with any boosted 5* or heavy hitting 4* (Ghost boosted is a perfect example).  Steal AP, gain lead, punch to death.

Not even close to 5* transition yet, but I do have a 5/5/3 lvl 300 Cable who I am excited to get up to 350 and start using that 10k hitting green

JackTenrec

In the early game, the most robust strategies seemed to be around AP generation.  For 2*, Magneto + OBW to feed Storm.  In 3* land, lots of Switch (later IM40).

Early 4* land (at least when I got there) was more about tile generation and buffing.  You had teams like Cage/Wasp (or Cage/IF) with lots of Medusa and Carol mixed in (and eventually Grocket and Nico).  Nowadays, depending on mood, I go with something like Peggy/Mockingbird/America or Mr. Fantastic/4* Black Panther/Shuri.

Skidoo

2* was Thor Widow Storm

3* started with HULK + GREY WIDOW + CAPTAIN AMERICA.  Hulk tanks & creates Green for GW.  Cap pops Red nuke and Blue stun as able to overwrite nasty enemy countdowns, and maybe his Yellow for a little protection. But the big hook is GW’s Purple to generate Green for her Big Green Gun AOE.

3* then I added cMAGNETO + LOKI + MOHAWK for board shake, cascades, and eventually total control once it got rolling.  cMag deals most damage w Blue and Red, but everybody contributes meaningfully. Mohawk’s Green generates AP & cascades.  Loki’s Purple shakes board and generates AP & cascades.  Mohawk’s Yellow helps generate TU and shake board when Mag’s Red isn’t up.  Mohawk’s Black can even be useful in many situations for regular dmg every turn.  Eventually, the powers create a feedback loop - generating AP to fire powers which shake the board and generate more AP to fuel powers which shake the board and generate more AP and so on.  Great against enemies that generate lots of Special Tiles and Counters.

3->4* began with 4* STAR-LORD + 3* STRANGE + IM40 and I relied on this for a long time. It’s still my go-to vs goons. Even high-level goons rarely deal damage to this team if played well.  Lots of tools here:  battery, passive team heals, passive AOEs, cost reduction, passive AP generation, stun, enemy AP depletion, overwriting enemy special tiles.  SL’s Red tends to be the primary weapon that can deal up to 10k for 6AP, but IM40’s Red or Blue can inflict damage in a pinch.

4* PEGGY C4RTER + 4* C4PTAIN M4RVEL + [fill in with Purple-Green user, like 4* Teen Jean, 3* KK, 3* SWitch, 3* Squirrel Girl].  I currently prefer using 3* KK for the free team heals.  Peggy’s Red is great DD nuke, her Blue is great for Stunning & damage.  C4rol’s Black countdown can take down bosses while generating nice strike tiles, her Green passive is a great battery & occasional passive AOE, and her Yellow accelerates & buffs tiles from her own Black and Peggy’s Blue.  The third teammate covers Green & Purple.  I like KK’s passive team Heal to keep the team fresh longer, but her Purple cannhaake the board a bit and her Green AOE helps a little.

I’m still in transition.

Kahmon

Hmmm. Lets see what I can remember...

2*s: I liked Thor, Storm, and Captain Marvel sincecall 3 had AE attacks.

3*s: I ran for a while with Ironman as a battery with good attacks, Black Widow for her big AE that IM40 powered up and, um, hmm... (takes time load and review roster)... IDK, maybe Wolverine until Dr. Strange came out.

3-4* Transition: Warmachine was the first 4* I had multiple covers for and by a lot for a while up until being my first 4* champ. So it was him, 3* Ironman still, and whoever was healthy.

4*: Thanks to vaulting timing, I wound up with a strong Grockett, Gamora, Medusa team that served me well for a while, until...

5* start: By accident, my first 5* Champ was Archangel, but he was soon joined by pre-nerf Gambit, so it was them and ??? For a while. I champed Blackbolt a week before the Gambit nerf so I only got to play them in full glory for a short time.

5* now: currently I run Thor, JJ, required in pvp and Thor, Cable, America in most pves.

dokiy

The 3 star team I used A LOT on wave nodes was Cap, SW, and Hood. Denied AP and would stunlock entire teams. Great help on Heart of Darkness and EotS PVE. 

beyonderbub

Okoye / Medusa / 3Thanos in PVE, 5Thanos and Featured 5* for 2*-4* essential nodes; featured + Okoye/Chavez for 5* essential
Thorkoye or Gritty for PVP; for shield sim it's thorkoye chavez, GRitty bishop or Kitty/5DD/Valkyrie is a new fun team for kicks