Grand Experiment 2: Treading Water in the SCL 10 Post-Shardpocalypse

ThaRoadWarrior

It's interesting - OML is 100% a passive strike generator in my mind, and in reality. Because his black is a dead stop turn-ender that costs 9 black (with a 12 yellow sub-requirement), I just don't see a world where I ever fire that off unless he is last man standing. I like that I finished him though - he was definitely looming over the upper tiers back when I first got serious about playing. After Thano5, I may chase those last 3 Gambit covers just to keep the ball rolling on the old-school metas. My Panther and Bolt are about half-covered both, so running Gambolt or Panthos would be still quite a ways off for me I think. I'd have to settle for 5torm-bit and iHulk-nos as the supercessions of those old teams.

ThaRoadWarrior

Got the 300th Magik i needed from an organic pull off a Mighty token, so I moved my 3* over to Gamora to be all in on the Thano5 tree for awhile.

Current Favorites:
Thano5: 5/3/3 with 277 shards
G4mora: lvl 318
Gamora: lvl 257

Hela and Cable now waiting on Iso.

ThaRoadWarrior

Pulled an organic 13th for Ghostpool, and got to 900 in this PVP to take G4mora to 320, so now Thano5 is 5/3/4. I moved my 3 and 4 over to Bucky/cap so I can finish up Lumbercap.

ThaRoadWarrior

Picked up a pair of shard slugs for Banner hulk to bring him up to 2/3/3 when I saw he was available yesterday. I'm not actively chasing him, but he was close and I had the HP. I also got a few Nightcrawler covers while trying to get a Warlock today that ended up getting me an Archangel (2/2/4). I'll have enough iso to champ a 5* by tomorrow, my options there being Ghostpool, Hela, or Cable. I think I should do it in that order, just given that Ghostpool will be featured a time or two more before he drops out.

I am curious what BRB/Hela/Kitty looks like in pick-3 against hulkoye teams though; seems like the opportunity to mega-boost stuff by murdering hulk over and over would be pretty fun.

ThaRoadWarrior

Ghostpool is champed. I’m experimenting with using him in lieu of 2099 for passive damage, currently with iHulk. 

I’m curious about my iso salary, and whether or not it’s possible to catch up to this new release rate or not. Now that double iso is over I’ll have to time how many days it takes to get to 580k iso. I think it was taking 12 or so, depending on my 3* situation.

ThaRoadWarrior

So I pulled a champ level for Ghostpool right after that, and then that let me finish up the Pull 50 5* covers milestone, which in turn finished up my Thano5. In retrospect, I should have moved that favorite over to Havok since he's the only unfed 5* I haven't champed that isn't still in Latest Legends. Oh well I guess...

Anyway, I decided to move my 5* favorite to Havok, who dropped out of Latest at 10 covers, so that by the time a feeder is launched I either won't need it, or I won't need to grind beyond 280. I could see one of the hypothetical, alleged upcoming 4*s being his feeder, so maybe it won't be a forever road to travel.

ThaRoadWarrior

Champed Thano5 this morning. I have a black coming for Panther from daily drops tomorrow, but that will only bring him to 3/1/3 with 400 shards. Still, he is one I’ve wanted to get over for a long time, so I may work on him. I’m much closer on Gambit and Daredevil though, so I’ll probably chase those first.

ThaRoadWarrior

Magneto is at 4/4/4, and Warlock is at 1/1/0, otherwise not much 5* news to report.

I will say that in Pick 2 pvp, if the required is a mutant, as in the Gambit one we just had, Apocalypse/Thano5 is pretty sweet. Since Apocalypse is immune to stun on that team, Shared Strength actually adds to Court Death damage, which moves a battle quick.

Also this is the first run of the 3* Fist pvp since I had Kitty champed, and boy, being part of that particular problem is a welcome change.

ThaRoadWarrior

Max champed Chavez, my first 370 4*. I have 220 characters on roster; not sure how I feel about a flip vs a dupe at this point.

ThaRoadWarrior

Now that this thread has been moved to General, I feel like I should be giving more meaningful updates lol.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, this thread used to live in the Theories & Statistics sub-forum, on the premise that it was for tracking how possible it is to remain 100% F2P and stay current on 5* releases as an SCL10 progression-only hybrid player after the introduction of Shards and now with the increased 5* release pace.

The TL;DR answer seems to be that it's actually more possible for me to stay current now than it was back in the bonus hero days, assuming you are the "champ-em-all, low 450s for everyone" type of roster builder. It's hard to say how much of that is my current roster shape vs shards, or what combination of both.

My current situation is that I'm starting to feel the iso-8 squeeze again. I just got a 13th cover for Magneto, so I now have him, Hela, and Cable waiting on iso, along with Elsa Bloodstone (5 saved covers and 2,790 shards) and Red Guardian (3 saved and 1,560 shards), with Scorpion at 4/4/4 and Throg at 2/3/3, otherwise all 4*s are champed. 

Historically I don't roster duplicates, but now that I have my first max-champ 4* I'm considering it. Typically I pull exclusively from latest until the next-out is champed, then I sit tight until the next 5* rotates into Latest Legends, but sometimes I'll just keep pulling. Now that Ghostpool AND Magneto are covered, i'm going to sit tight at least until Yellowjacket hits latest to get a cover for node access. Also generally speaking I sit on my progression shards for new characters unless it's for a first-cover for rostering purposes until they're about to leave, that way I can correct a lopsided build assuming RNGeezus is unkins.

Current Latest Crop:
Ghostpool: lvl 453
Magneto: 4/4/5 (waiting on iso)
Adam Warlock: 1/1/0

New:
Yellowjacket: 0/0/0 with 390 shards

Favorites:
5* - Havok, who left Latest at 5/2/3, and is unfed still. 228 shards currently
4* -Winter Soldier: lvl 314
3*-Cap - currently lvl 238

My lumbercap is 4/4/4 with 100 shards, I'm working on him via Bucky for now. I'm just adding classics based on who is nearest to champable at this point by working on 4*s in the background. I'm not really missing any meta characters at this point, so that's just a completionist long-play.

ThaRoadWarrior

I champed Magneto this morning, so it does look like I'm pulling down enough iso-8 to take a 5* from zero to champed in roughly 12 days. I did flip a max-champ 3* along the way, and I have another one of those queued up to flip (one more Punish3r to go), so we'll see if I can't stay ahead of the release schedule by more than 2 days moving forward. 

I kind of want to mess around with Magneto and see if I can't find some sort of useful team for him. I kind of feel like he's actually a 3/5/5, and run him like a 5* version of Emma Frost rather than like a 5* version of Vulture. He kind of seems like a pick-3 with Polaris/BRB anti-hulk option, but I'd love to find his niche in pick 2 if there is one. I love the character Magneto, and I'm super bummed this one isn't like a slam dunk meta character.

Daredevil217

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I kind of want to mess around with Magneto and see if I can't find some sort of useful team for him. I kind of feel like he's actually a 3/5/5, and run him like a 5* version of Emma Frost rather than like a 5* version of Vulture. He kind of seems like a pick-3 with Polaris/BRB anti-hulk option, but I'd love to find his niche in pick 2 if there is one. I love the character Magneto, and I'm super bummed this one isn't like a slam dunk meta character.

That’s exactly where I am with him. I started doing his write up for my guide, but it’s hard when I only have him at one cover. So I’m writing thoughts and will post only after I’ve had a real chance to use him champed. A third to BRB/Kitty is all I have for him in the “pairings” section but would like to sit down and think about pick 2 partners as that’s where my guide focuses more. 

PiMacleod

I just started reading into this topic today, and i identify with a lot of it.  

Im trying to champ them all, but with no rush, and cash.

I favorite the correct set of peeps to shard them up.

Ive went from just 1 5* champ to just over 20 of them within the last year or two.  Hoarding CP and LTs for new release stores and LL appearances has been my main method, and its worked so well, that i only pulled enough stuff in the YJ store to get ONE YJ cover and stop -- i already had Storm and Thor at 13+ covers, and i dont necessarily need more of them, so that was a first time for me.  Never used the handbrake before! 

Kinda neat to read this stuff you're doing...  Its like im reading about me, but replace the names with others.  Like im not too close on either Cap, not close on either Hulk, and many others... But theres others that i've had done for a while now.

Currently targetting BP (just one more cover needed!).  But as soon as Throg gets in tokens, its all BRB for me.  I've been having fun with Storm/Throg/Negasonic here and there. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Yeah, hopefully this helps somebody; you can see the previous thread from when I initially transitioned to the 5* tier back in Theories and Statistics, I'm pretty sure the link is at the beginning of this thread but if not, it's also called The Grand Experiment. I'd just seen Spider-Verse, and Fi5k seemed like he might be interesting (he wasn't in the end), and I had what I felt was enough champed 4*s to commit to latest at the time. Ended up getting there first with Ghost Rider though, followed by Doom, and didn't champ Fi5k until way later. I'm up to 27 champs now.

So I ended up setting Magneto to 4/5/4 (maximum yellow conversion on blue, but still only 2 turns airborn, and red isn't super affected by it either) as an anti-hulk in the Rock3t pvp that just started, and then took Polaris in against a Hulkoye team. This hulk is 452, and the Okoye is 478, enemy rock3t is a loaner. I used +2 to yellow/red and blue/purple, and was able to fire Magneto's yellow after the first turn with a lucky match-4 yellow and a green-light starting condition. It definitely didn't work at all, so I'll have to try something else.

PiMacleod

Cool to know you got mags champed though.  He's close for me (out of the current crop of newest)... Sitting at 9 covers i believe.  But havent had a ton of luck with Adam or DP.

SamDak has been big fun for me since getting him champed.  He's never the reason i win, but he's the person who shuts down the enemy at key moments.  That red just keeps brbitty teams under control, no matter what level those protects are at.  So nice!

I think the hardest thing about doing things the way people like us are, is that new characters have better basic stats, and due to that, they tank over Okoye... But some abilities blatantly scream out "use a damage booster!"... And so my baby champ Okoye tries to pull her weight, but she's obviously outclassed by someone like SamDak.

ThaRoadWarrior

Tried again, similarly leveled enemy hulkoye, but with Magneto/Carbage. I won by trying to flood all greens, and generally keep Hulk down. I won, but both Magneto and Carbage died along the way, so it isn't a sustainable team either. Going to try Kitty next - magneto can get protects down pretty fast actively, so maybe that will work well.

ThaRoadWarrior

PiMacleod said:

Cool to know you got mags champed though.  He's close for me (out of the current crop of newest)... Sitting at 9 covers i believe.  But havent had a ton of luck with Adam or DP.

SamDak has been big fun for me since getting him champed.  He's never the reason i win, but he's the person who shuts down the enemy at key moments.  That red just keeps brbitty teams under control, no matter what level those protects are at.  So nice!

I think the hardest thing about doing things the way people like us are, is that new characters have better basic stats, and due to that, they tank over Okoye... But some abilities blatantly scream out "use a damage booster!"... And so my baby champ Okoye tries to pull her weight, but she's obviously outclassed by someone like SamDak.

yeah; I find that using a 50Thor keeps her fed well enough that she can stay ahead of the tanking issue in pick-3, it's really not an issue for me. but yeah, Pick 2 it's a bit less awesome.

PiMacleod

Right.  Pick 3?  No issue really....

Im just waiting for the "new class" of these peeps to roll out.

Apoc is the new damage booster.
Carbage does double turns better than Banner by far.
SamDak can make plenty of strikes, and provide regen, in a much more damaging (albeit situational) fashion over OML.

Theres probably more examples out there, but these come to mind.  Good design keeps them different, but higher stats make the new ones shine more.

So... Since we have a new booster... When's the next Kitty?  Strange?  Half-Thor?  I'd think only a matter of time, because the devs know the people would spend heavy on those.

Anyways, thats a different topic.  Didnt mean to derail it... Just thinking out loud in text form. 

ThaRoadWarrior

So Magneto/Kitty “works” in pick 2 against Hulkoye, but you need to go in with +2 yellow at least to get protects down fast on green. It is SLOW though, because they both lack teeth offensively without an accelerant.

ThaRoadWarrior

Magneto/Profe$$or X, while it has no obvious turn-1synergy, works well too. A lot of defense stacking with X at 5/3/5. Even so though, I can't help but feel that Magneto is a 3rd wheel rather than a primary pick.