I once met a team called Cardusa...

Jacklag

Cardusa is a duo that boggles me. Of course the trick is killing Medusa first, before her team has too many tiles and too much AP. Sometimes I can do that with ease. But depending on the board you just can't help but match her tiles away or yours. I would like a more guaranteed strategy against this otherwise chaotic team. 

I've been thinking of chasing more Kraven covers, but before I commit too many resources to a 4* that is usually so easily dismissed, I would like to consider other's suggestions. Maybe there is a good answer on my Roster already. Here is a list of my best 5 and 4*s:

5*: Apocalypse (1/5/3), Beta Ray Bill(3/2/5), Onslaught (2/4/1), Hera (1/4/2), Thor (4/1/1). Since Daken is also based on total tiles on the board, I'll list him too, though mine is only 1/1/0.

4*: America Chavez, Black Cat, Cloak and Dagger, Captain America (Worthy), Captain Marvel, Gamora, Human Torch(Jim Hammond), Iceman, Invisible Woman, Juggernaut, Karnak, Magik, Medusa, Miles Morales, Mr. Fantastic, Mysterio, , Nico Minoru, Nightcrawler, Peggy Carter, Prowler, Rocket & Groot, Rogue, Sabertooth, Spiderman 2099, Wasp, Wolfsbane. 

I'm starting to build Polaris, but she is not strong enough yet. Nor is my Vulture.

Oh, note that sometimes it's a 5* Carnage + Medusa, which is a double tap problem.

Daredevil217

The answer is Medusa. Their Carnage fuels your healing and AP gathering and you get to bring whatever outlet you like to use the AP, because THEIR Carnage acts as YOUR battery. So you should always have the advantage. Plus you can focus fire on Medusa first and leave Carnage for last, whereas the AI can’t focus fire in the same way. A person with stun capabilities like Iceman or Polaris is nice because you can get quite the head start on AP when tiles are matched while their dusa is sleeping. 

PiMacleod

For anti-Cardusa strats, using just 4* peeps, I usually use THEIR fire to fight with...

Use THEIR Carnage.  He's gonna make tiles for you... and like you said, you fight Medusa first (as anyone would), leave Carnage for last.  He's gonna keep "helping" you during this fight.

An old team I used to use -- and don't laugh it off yet -- is Medusa, 4* Gamora, 3* Hawkeye.

Medusa is gonna do what Medusa does.  And their Carnage is gonna feed your Medusa, and hence, your team.  Also, matching enemy tiles will let your 3* Hawkeye generate blue and purple AP, not to mention whatever AP Medusa's gonna give you too.  And obviously, use Gamora to stun people who need a good reminder of who's in charge.  If it's 5* Carnage, probably he's your target to stun, and try to *purposely* match the enemy Medusa's entanglement, so as to create more enemy tiles to fuel your AP generation.  If it's 4* Carnage, leave him alone, as he's helping you... stun Medusa instead.

That's just a top-of-my-mind team I used to use.  If it's 4* Carnage, then 4* Rocket can be used in place of Hawkeye -- you'll get less AP, sure, but you'll get great out-the-gate damage, and since there is more of YOUR tiles out there, you'll have more healing options too.  Obviously, this isn't good against 5* Carnage due to his extra turn.

There's probably plenty of others.  This is just my experience in the past.

ThaRoadWarrior

Reworked Mr Fantastic can fire off a free power for every 4 enemy specials you match, so you might be able to use that to your advantage.

I find Kraven is too slow to really be a factor at lower champ levels (sub-300), but that could be an artifact of my MMR.

Dazzler + a tile spammer (Rocket/Valkyrie/BRB/MAYBE Polaris) is a really slept-on character. If she's tanking, and you have special tiles out on the board, she'll remove a bunch of opposing tiles and stun the target. 

Th4nos will remove some enemy specials and turn them to green.

Invisible Woman could lock medusa's tile, and once locked, it's out of circulation until somebody matches it. But without the Stunner Bros for a blue battery, she is probably too slow for that now.

DyingLegend

The answer is obvious......

Use Lockjaw!

Jacklag

I never considered using their Carnage to feed my Medusa. That's just brilliant. I usually do Mr. Fantastic + Nico or Mr. Fantastic + Karnak to try to get those powers to fire for free, but Mr. Fantastic + 3*Hawkeye never occurred to me and it should be... well, Fantastic.

I'm going to try all of those later on. Thank you.

krakenoon

@PiMacleod It seems like Polaris would be a viable replacement for both Gamora & Hawkguy. Sure, you miss out on the chance to instakill and your strikes cut both ways, but special tile duplication & the extra damage just seems to outweigh that even with less stunning. Not sure the extra blue & purple ap would be worth it. For viable 3rds, you’ve got a lot to chose from, but I might focus on the fact that yellow, green & red have no outlet or just really good synergy with 1 or 2 of those colors. Please let me know if I am incorrect here.

Since the Polaris release, my goal of champing Gamora has slid waaay back until I might need her in PvE 10, but I still have nothing on my 5Hawkeye and just a handful of covers on Coulson.

PiMacleod

krakenoon said:

@PiMacleod It seems like Polaris would be a viable replacement for both Gamora & Hawkguy. Sure, you miss out on the chance to instakill and your strikes cut both ways, but special tile duplication & the extra damage just seems to outweigh that even with less stunning. Not sure the extra blue & purple ap would be worth it. For viable 3rds, you’ve got a lot to chose from, but I might focus on the fact that yellow, green & red have no outlet or just really good synergy with 1 or 2 of those colors. Please let me know if I am incorrect here.

Since the Polaris release, my goal of champing Gamora has slid waaay back until I might need her in PvE 10, but I still have nothing on my 5Hawkeye and just a handful of covers on Coulson.

You're right... Polaris is a solid choice.  Problem is, there's no real solution for the OP -- he doesn't have her, and frankly, most of us here don't have her champed yet.  Sure, she's still good... but I'm also sure that the OP is looking for solutions using the characters he mentioned in his first post.  I just assumed he had 3* Hawkeye, since he mentioned all of those other dudes. 

Oh, you don't really need a red, yellow, or green outlet.  I mean, unless one of the people the opponent has is Yelena or Hela, or even Mordo, there's no real reason to worry about it.  For the 3*HE-using-team, I just purposely match enemy tiles.  This usually leads to plenty of purple and blue, and the fight revolves around that.  I guess theoretically, I could've always replaced Gamora with 4* Iceman...  4 turn cheap stun, and a green outlet too.  Sure, the strikes are weaker, but that extra big icy punch could help clean up quicker.  I was never using Gamora in this team for insta-kills, mind you... just as a stunner.  Obviously, she has a red outlet too, but again, not the focus.

Personally, I'd still get Gamora up there.  I got like 12 champed 5*s, including Kitty, Okoye (very recently!), and a 12-cover Apoc... and I STILL gotta resort to my 7 cover HE with Gamora and Coulson to kill certain challenge nodes on SCL 10.  Certain team ups are just crazy.  I don't think Polaris will replace the 6 AP, 2-man stun, with chance of insta-kill, when it comes to SCL 10 challenge nodes.

helix72

I once met a team called Cardusa
Who sliced up my team like Yakuza
So I reached out for help
And let out a yelp
When I realized my fate was to lose-ahhhh!

Michael1957

I used a 9/13 Polaris enhanced by Okoye and that takes them out easily in roughly 5 to 8 moves . Medusa is dead in 3 on average. As a matter of fact anyone using any Carnage (4,5) on defense has a death wish as Polaris has made him obsolete 

Vhailorx

Jacklag:

As stated by many, Medusa is among the best 4* options to fight Medusa, with Polaris and Iceman also being useful for their stun capabilities.  But that is little help if you can get those characters covered and champed.

How hard is it to champ a 4* for 4* players these days?  I feel like I have absolutely no sense for the current state of the game below cl9 these days (and 4* covers are more available than ever these days for 5* players.  And even though they are heavily focused on newer releases, I still feel like collecting 10-13 covers for a vintage 4* would only take me a few months now; I was able to get Emma frost from 10 covers to level 280 in about 4 months to finish kitty pryde).

HoundofShadow

America Chavez with AP boost teaming up with someone with hard hitting match damage like Ghost, Juggernaut, Karnak or 5* characters for pick-2 PvPs. Your match will end quickly. 

For pick-3, you can throw in someone with stun against 5* Carnage.

Dormammu

Cardusa used to be a team that was feared. The two of them plus either Iceman or MrF (before his rework) dominated the SHIELD Sim at 4-star MMR. But that was a long time ago. Now the game has so many tools for their sort of nonsense and defeating them should be trivial.

The easiest way is to use 4-star Rocket plus any tile-buffer like Nico. Use Carnage's free attack tiles to your benefit and bolster them with Rocket's strikes. (An under-covered Kitty will do the trick as well, though the OP doesn't mention her.) You'll shred them apart before Medusa can do her thing.

Lots of hard-counters exist at the 4-star tier like Thanos, Kraven, Prowler, Lockjaw, etc...

And everyone should be hoarding any tokens right now that can get them 4-star shards, because once Polaris enters tokens you'll want to champ her - she's going to make opposing tile-spammers seem trivial.

sambrookjm

helix72 said:

I once met a team called Cardusa
Who sliced up my team like Yakuza
So I reached out for help
And let out a yelp
When I realized my fate was to lose-ahhhh!

I'm glad that someone else's mind went straight to "MPQ Limericks" with the subject...

So are any of them from Nantucket? 

DAZ0273

Daredevil217 said:

The answer is Medusa. Their Carnage fuels your healing and AP gathering and you get to bring whatever outlet you like to use the AP, because THEIR Carnage acts as YOUR battery. So you should always have the advantage. Plus you can focus fire on Medusa first and leave Carnage for last, whereas the AI can’t focus fire in the same way. A person with stun capabilities like Iceman or Polaris is nice because you can get quite the head start on AP when tiles are matched while their dusa is sleeping. 

/\

This. I have always loved the fact that Medusa on her own is a more effective counter than Cardusa is!