Extraordinary new defensive PvP team for 4* players

TranscendGod

Bishop (5/5/3), Peggy (5/3/5), Deadpool (3/5/5).

As soon as Bishop's details were released, I began hoarding heroics so I could champ him as soon as he was added to tokens. It was clear to me that he was destined for greatness. Due to a bit of bad luck I had to wait until the 12 days of Christmas reward for the final cover. As soon as I had time, I climbed to the top of the simulator and ended with this team. Offensively, it works quite well against any high match damage team in my normal MMR range. I mostly focused on attacking all the new Kitty R&G medusa teams. Seems to require about .5 to 1 health packs per win mostly depending on the size of the Kitty. High level kitties are too powerful for my relatively low level 4* champs, and the team starts to struggle against Kitties above level 405.

Since then, I've been accumulating hundreds of defensive victories. I get so many it often pushes my score back up into the 1900s. I'm sure this will change as more players learn how to effectively counter this team, but it has been a truly hilarious experience thus far. The only real downside is that the defensive wins can disrupt your PVE clears and shield hops.

I've never had the opportunity to actually play against this team, but essentially Bishop's red passive ensures that he'll jump to the front as long as he's alive against a high match damage team. With sufficient match damage, this will generate 5 blue AP and trigger Deadpool and Bishop's damage dealing passives. A small cascade can generate a large amount of blue AP, which is bad news when Peggy's around. Peggy's passive makes it more difficult to use abilities to disrupt the combo, and prolongs the match. Ultimately, the goal is to become a less attractive target than other teams worth similar points. But I never expected the team to win so frequently.

There are many other fun and awesome Bishop based teams, but I thought my experience with this team in particular was worth writing about. Have fun!

bbigler

I've seen this team in SIM once (maybe it was yours) and was intrigued by it.  I was playing GrockittyDusa, so I imagined how the match would go: I'm forced to attack Bishop, he produces Blue for stunning and retaliates with damage while XFDP also retaliates with damage.  That didn't sound very fun, so I skipped. 

Peggy's passive doesn't bother Grocket teams though.  Peggy's stun is killer, but Bishop has a built in stun too.  You could run someone else with a strong Blue power and passives.  Maybe Yondu for his Blue nuke? Iceman for the Stun/Punch combo?  Riri to hit with Blue, then Red?  Vulture to remove their specials?  Prowler to hit and stun (plus Prowler can steal specials).  Or just use Grocket to beef up their retal hits, plus he has a blue power too. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I fought that team a couple times; I was able to win, but it was at least 1 health pack to recover for sure. It was a welcome change from the 400+ lvl Kitty/4ocket teams i was up against with an unchamped Dazzler. 

The thing about Peggy's passive vs a high match-damage team is that Bishop's jump-in-front passive eats it, and then he claps back for 4k damage and DP creates some CD tiles that add to it. Once you kill Bishop, the team likely has enough blue in the bank for Peggy to hit you with her blue, which after all that chip damage is probably nearing game over or at least skin-of-your-teeth status. You need a multi-stunner like G4mora to solve one or both of those problems, which is where Peggy's passive comes into play. I was using G4mora/Vulture/Sandman to keep the passives in check. You basically have to chase black and get Vulture up, then Peggy becomes less of an issue.

It's a strong defense contender for sure, I wonder how it plays offensively though? My own Bishop is 2/2/2 and my XFDP still needs a red to be champable at 2/5/7 lvl 94. 

bbigler

The prominence of Grocket teams makes Bishop a force to be reckoned with.  Shield Sim is an interesting place, it has your mainstream teams (Grocket teams) and your counter-mainstream teams (Carol teams).  Grocket teams can easily beat Carol teams with no health packs, but not against a Bishop/XFDP team.  So, we need a counter-counter-mainstream team (or just an anti-Bishop team).  So, basically a team that deals normal match damage and collects AP until it unleashes a killer combo, so pre-Grocket teams.  The solution is to stun Bishop, so I see the purpose of Peggy, but her Yellow should be at level 5 for maximum disruption. 

In the end, you have to beat them with either a slow team or just use a health pack and beat them with a fast team.  Transcend, your team is good, I admit, and it requires a special team to counter it. I imagine you'll get a lot of defensive wins until everyone realizes how good they are.  Then people will either skip or use a special counter team for them.  So, enjoy it while it lasts.  

ThaRoadWarrior

You either need to be able to 1-shot Bishop, who eats all damage with no rogue-like mitigation, or get some early stuns in from my experience. The baby-champ Bishop I saw in this matchup had around 15k health. So C4rol, Yondu come to mind.

The Spider-Fam probably does okay here, since Iron Spider is making webs passively and Miles is accruing AP in the background. I just have Miles champed, the others at 209 waiting on iso, so i didn't attempt it. Actually, this team is probably a pretty hard counter to it with the damage mitigation Iron Spider brings to the table and the health regen your'e getting from Spider-Gwen as webs get matched up.

Bl4de might be able to help you since he starts doing problematic levels of damage regardless of Peggy's AP tax. I'm curious how bloodlust interacts with Bishop, my Bl4de isn't champed so I didn't consider that at the time when I was queing this team up.

Cardusa+Dazzler might be interesting - it would take a few turns to get enough enemy specials on the board for Dazzler's passive to trigger, but it may coincide pretty cleanly with Bishop crossing his damage threshold. He slams Dazzler, she removes all the carnage attacks and hits him with the multi-turn stun, then you do what you need to.

Alternatively a Dazzler/40cket/Kitty team that was already in play as a counter to 4ocket/Kitty/Medusa teams might also do the same thing if you don't actually need enemy specials on the board for Survivor to trigger.

SymmeTrey

This is basically a "Back to the Future" defensive team. You can't really use the current meta teams (Grockdusa or even Chavez-based teams) against them. High, passive turn-to-turn damage is going to generate a ton of blue and you will get creamed.

Instead, you would probably have to play "old school" MPQ against this team... do regular old, low turn-to-turn match damage (staying under the Bishop damage threshold) and build up AP and then launch powers to take Bishop out.

ThaRoadWarrior

Thing/C4rol/XFDP might counter this team decently

bbigler

OJSP said:

Can we talk about potential counters here? I say potential, because I haven’t fought that team yet. However, I think I can muster a few teams that could do okay against them.

How about 4*Gamora + Vulture + IM40.  Collect either Blue, Black or Yellow, whichever you can get the most of.  Then fire off the battery power and/or stun Peggy and Bishop.  Then keep the stun lock going until they're all dead.

DAZ0273

I haven't come across this team but I was thinking about using Riri, Gamora and IM40. Riri gives you an extra option with her green to take Bishop off the board. You can also avoid attacking Bishop if he jumps to the front with her red.

TranscendGod

The teams that win tend to have Peggy, IM40, and/or vulture. I also see a lot of sub 360 5* that don't trigger gambit (especially the super useful ones like Thor), and I see a fair amount of Carol teams (without R&G of course!). Being able to stun 2 characters at once (Peggy blue) or one shot Bishop so he doesn't make blue/retaliate seems to work pretty well. AP generation is also awesome, even if delayed by Peggy passive. And of course, I see some champ 5* teams but not nearly as many as I normally would when visible to everyone. I imagine that's mostly due to people preferring to avoid bishop/deadpool in favor of easier targets.

And for the record, I seem to get about 5 or 6 defensive wins for each defensive loss. It's hard to tell for sure because I'll often get attacked so many times I can't see all the results (just that the overall result was positive or slightly negative with a ton of defensive wins in the results that fit in the display). It reminds me a bit of the best defensive team I ever used (spidergwen, thing, gambat), although that was more extreme because I was attacked far more frequently for various reasons. I'm sure it'll change over time as players learn how to counter, but I get many wins against newer 4* players who are missing important 4* champs. Could be difficult for them. Especially against players with higher level 4s (my 4s are low level champs because I've been hoarding legendaries for a very long time).

Warbeast_7

My go to try-hard team is IM40, c4rol, and peggy (3/5/5). Focus yellow, fire IM40 yellow, focus black, once yellow tiles fire off and you focus black you fire carols black, then peggys blue(on peggy and dp), launch black on bishop, gg no re?

shardwick

bbigler said:

OJSP said:

Can we talk about potential counters here? I say potential, because I haven’t fought that team yet. However, I think I can muster a few teams that could do okay against them.

How about 4*Gamora + Vulture + IM40.  Collect either Blue, Black or Yellow, whichever you can get the most of.  Then fire off the battery power and/or stun Peggy and Bishop.  Then keep the stun lock going until they're all dead.

I would do Gamora, Vulture and Domino. Domino gets Vulture flying and churning out blues in no time. Very easy to stun lock a team with them. 

jtsings

   I've not seen this team either but the old tried and true Peggy, Moon Knight and IM40 should do the trick.  Put Peggy in front first: collect 9 yellow to get enough AP for Peggy's blue, red and Moon Knight's green.  Next put Bishop in front and cast Peggy's blue then red then I'm assuming Moon Knights green will automatically down Bishop because he'll jump in front of whoever is targeted for the damage.  Then it's your choice on whether you want to take Peggy down and eat the damage from Deadpool or take down Deadpool first and work against Peggy solo.

MoosePrime

jtsings said:

I'm assuming Moon Knights green will automatically down Bishop because he'll jump in front of whoever is targeted for the damage.

Randomly targeted damage like Moon Knight's Moonsilver Blades (green) (and Gwenpoole's Chekov's Gun (green) and 4* Blade's Bloodlust (red)), don't trigger jump in front effects.

ThaRoadWarrior

Randomly targeted damage like Moon Knight's Moonsilver Blades (green) (and Gwenpoole's Chekov's Gun (green) and 4* Blade's Bloodlust (red)), don't trigger jump in front effects.

Bishop’s auto retaliate doesn’t actually care if he’s in front, it accrues across the match. He’d still clap back at you if you hit him like that

Daredevil217

It’s actually a great offensive team against Grocket (or any high damage team). I like it better as an addition to the Carol/Rulk/Grocket counter teams because you don’t need your own Grocket (actually none of the characters are duplicated). Good find. 

DAZ0273

Finally got to fight one of these and it was tough but my instinct to use Riri was spot on and she won it for me.