The ChaHulk meta

Bowgentle

@HoundofShadow said:
A lot of players were skeptical about Silver Surfer's Black Hole countering Chasm because it costs 12 black aps and it's almost impossible to fire it against them.

First, we need to understand how Chasm's black power work. Chasm will reduce up to 3 aps (1 Abyss tile = 1 ap deduction) of the front character's 6 strongest colours in a specific order: from the highest value to the lowest value.

Why is this important to know? Because it allows you to predict exactly when Chasm will reduce your black aps. Black Hole costs 12 aps, which means it will take at least 4 turns to fire the power and another 3 turns to down him.

Here's the set up:
+1 all ap , +2 blue/purple, + 2 black/green.
Now, Silver Surfer's Black Hole cost 9 aps.

If Chasm's build is 5/X/X, the fastest number of turn to take him to eat your black aps is the 3rd turn because he reduces up to 3 ap a turn. If you +2 all ap, it will increase by 1 turn.

If Chasm's build is 4/XX, the fastest number of turn to take him to eat your black aps is the 4th because he reduces up to 2 aps per turn.

Since SS can't be stunned, the first match will always be black/blue/red, and Chasm will always reduce your blue ap first.
On your second turn, Wanda can use her purple on black to create more black tiles.

After this, it's down to board reading. If you are so unlucky that you can't get any black matches, then use Wanda to tank to delay Chasm reaching your black aps, while she's creating black tiles.

Based on my experience with this particular team, it takes me an average of 5 turns to gather 12 or more black aps, and I would fire it on the 6th turn and Chasm would be downed on your 10th turn. The average time taken to hit 'Victory' is ~2 minutes, which is slightly faster than my Dr Thor/Iceman team. I'm not sure how fast players want a counter team to beat Chasm/iHulk. 1 minute?

As for placement of Black Hole, if you want to play it safe, you can put it at the top right or top left corner. Here's three videos of Wanda/Silver Surfer against Chasm/iHulk. It took me a lot of skips to find them in Cyclops pvps:

Against baby champed Chasm
https://streamable.com/kywo02

Against high level Chasm
https://streamable.com/8nayd4
https://streamable.com/xyrkzq

Thing is, you can't do that above 800, you'll come out to a -250.
It's like putting out a grill.
Also, your Surfer should have died in the first video 🤣

Bad

@Bowgentle said:

Who cares, these players can go for wins.

So you nonchalantly said that.
I'd never say who cares about a situation when players could win all the rewards on progression on ~26 wins and now they need to do it on double the wins, that's it, a QoL reduction (and look how bad I am, perhaps we should change names).
Also these players can go for wins, or not, that fact only devs will know. If not is the case, I'd never say who cares if the game is played in less amount by a lot of players (yeah, I know, to that you will answer who cares too).
@HoundofShadow your great counter has some flaws. You need to use +1 All which is a HP resource and a lot of +2 (can't you see you are meaning here that the chahulk team is so superior that needs all that?)
Also you need SS who is a classic character and a huge amount of players don't have him and it will be really hard to champ him. Count me as one of them.
The counter should be a new character, and also appealing like chasm.
If not it won't serve to me.

Bad

@HoundofShadow said:

Here's the set up:
+1 all ap , +2 blue/purple, + 2 black/green.
Now, Silver Surfer's Black Hole cost 9 aps.

Oh, I really love this phrase. Worthy if the best salesmen.
9 AP is a whole world! If you are only counting on SW's help, not, it isn't so easy that now Black Hole costs 9 AP.

ThaRoadWarrior

I’d like to see some more videos of Jane/Iceman. That team seems like it should work, but for me one or the other gets wiped out super fast. Iceman is one of my best characters at 463 and it doesn’t seem to matter. I just always end up with dry boards or CDs that are miles away from the tiles getting destroyed by Jane.

HoundofShadow

@Bad I don't see anything wrong with using ap boost. I believe that when the dev created this, the original intention was to help players deal with difficult battle. Some players would rather skip Chasm/iHulk than deal with them and pay 10 iso-8 per skip. Sure, they can close and reopen the app to mitigate this cost but they are trading 30-45 seconds for this savings. Each match against Chasm cost only 10 HP and 160 iso-8. In my ~20 wins to reach 1200 or so, Chasm/iHulk team contributes to about 4-5 wins per pvp. The total cost is ~50 HP and ~900 iso-8. If you're so hard up for HP, you can always pull from Spicy Vault to get +2 ap.

If Silver Surfer's Black Hole is too cheap, people will probably have a hard time climbing and snipers would probably love using Black Hole. If it's 6-7aps, you'll down a character as fast as the 5th turn. If it's 8-10ap, it would be as fast as the 7th turn. Black Hole can down any character, and not just Chasm. How many baby champed 5* can down a 672 character on your 5th turn without using Whales? What about the 7th turn? Maybe? What about 10th turn? Probably?

That's the problem: You want a counter that is new and appealing as Chasm: great on defense and drag out matches. Then, chances are you are going to complain when this new counter slows down your matches and makes you eat healthpacks every match. Why? Because players who play optimally will start using this counter. If you are choosy about all the 5* counters there are available out there, then I think it's a problem you created for yourself. You were also complaining about Riri/Dr Thor as a counter to Chasm.

@Bowgentle My Silver Surfer is at only ~40k HP. If he's champed, he wouldn't have died. What's important is that Wanda/Silver Surfer is the most predictable counter you can put against Chasm. Based on my experiences putting out "grills" that are counters to Chasm/iHulk, I do get hit sometimes, but not -250. It's usually -40 to -50 but since I mostly hit characters with 60-75 points, I usually end up positive. I do come out of battle with negative ~150 or so but it happens infrequently. Coming out of pvp with -40 to -150 has happened to me before the existence of Chasm. Personally, I find that it's a norm to get hit once every few battles. I'm still hitting my 1200 in 18-22 wins. If you're playing competitively, then you'd already have good counter to Chasm/iHulk. I saw that AoE teamups like 5* Prof X is good and seems to be popular.

@ThaRoadWarrior I'll try to make more videos of Dr Thor/Iceman. If dry board is an issue, then it's likely RNG. Bad matches do happen regardless of who you use.

Bad

@HoundofShadow said:
Each match against Chasm cost only 10 HP and 160 iso-8. In my ~20 wins to reach 1200 or so, Chasm/iHulk team contributes to about 4-5 wins per pvp. The total cost is ~50 HP and ~900 iso-8.

.

Perfect. Then you should say: on my MMR the chahulk team still is not predominant.
But don't worry, soon or later it will be.
With the hulkoye team happened the same if I remember correctly: you didn't see them often. Until finally they came for you.
My complaint about ririthor is for the same reason: it seems OP and susceptible on causing unbalance and lack of variety.

HoundofShadow

Could you define dominant? My mmr is ~50% iHulk/Chasm and ~50% boosted teams + weird teams popping up in my mmr.

You mentioned that Dr Thor / Riri seems OP and your ideal counter is something as appealing as Chasm. The reason why Chasm is appealing, is because he can drag out matches with his defensive abilities, even against boosted 5* characters. Matches can go as long as 5 minutes, 10 minutes or even up to 45 or 60 minutes. This is what you said,

"The counter should be a new character, and also appealing like chasm.
If not it won't serve to me."

How does it make sense that your solution that drags out matches against boosted 5* is not OP, and yet Riri/Dr Thor is considered OP? Your solution is merely a new problem in disguise. What it serves is another new topic created by players wanting this counter to be nerfed.

Bad

My MMR is 80% chasm after just 400 points.
If there was a character blocking AP destroyed/compensating AP, or killing forever easier than SS, chasm would have a predator in the rock paper system and probably the balance would be restored.
It's as easy as that, no need to release OP characters, just a hard counter for him. Ihulk had 2, chasm doesn't have any yet.

ThaRoadWarrior

Dr Thor/Iceman is about as reliable (which is to say: not very) as Main Event based counters to Kitty/Rocket for me so far. It works often enough that you feel like it’s the tool you have, but it wipes enough that you feel like you’re bringing a knife to a gunfight.

HoundofShadow

@Bad how long, on average, does it take you to win a match against Chasm/iHulk? If 2 minute is not considered fast enough, how fast do you expect? In the current pvp, I'm also taking ~2 minutes to finish a match against Knull/Thor or Knull/AW. Are you saying that if the dev create a hard counter that is fast and is also a glass cannon team to Chasm/iHulk, you are fine with that? What I meant is it could take down Chasm/iHulk quickly, and likewise, boosted 5* or other 5* team could also take out this counter team with ease as well. Is this the balance you're hoping for?

There are a few counters out there already, and even the dev said that there're counters working well against Chasm/iHulk. Maybe the dev could share what counter teams they are referring to. I'm curious to know as well.

Bad

It's not just about speed. If it was just a matter of speed my MMR wouldn't have been decreased tresholds on 500 points.
There are many factors that make this meta unpleasant.
And as I already said it should'nt be a matter of countering them.
It should'nt be a matter of countering always a particular team, on first place.
When that happens is because there is a real issue and players should'nt be adapting to a problem which devs created, as the only way to fight this meta.

skittledaddy

@KGB said:

@Sekilicious said:
There is a thread on Reddit complaining about lack of variety in PvP and more than a few of the posts are about Polaris. I’m not sure how many of the forum members here are real 4* players (KGB and Skittledaddy don’t qualify anymore, lol).

Hey Now!

I'm still a 4* player as long as continue to see 4* MRR opponents.

4* MMR (at least mine in the L350 range) consists of the following:
1) Polaris
2) JThor
3) Chasm
4) Weekly Boosted 5*

Roughly 9/10 teams fall into that category and often you see them combined (ie JThor + Polaris or Chasm + Polaris or boosted 5* + Chasm and so on). The final 1/10 team is something other than those 4 above. Less than 1/20 teams is dual 4* boosted.

The 5* I do see are rarely fully covered (until I hit 600+ points) but typically have 6-10 covers to they are useful. And yes, I see ChaHulk teams once I hit 800ish points and get close to breaking MMR.

I can still reach 25 wins but it takes a LOT of skips to get there now plus a lot of health pack it never used to require.

KGB

Not surprisingly, same experience here. Maybe you can just call KGB, myself, and the other soft-cappers the High 4* MMR.

I hardly ever see Chasm, and the few times I do it's an easy skip because there are plenty of other options to queue.
The majority of what I see in my MMR is Polaris partnered with an undercovered Jane.
The Chasm meta didn't propagate down to our MMR yet, and now that he is out of Latests, it may not ever happen.
It sure is nice to throw my own fully-covered Chasm/iHulk, out though for easy floating. Not many in my MMR even bother touching that, and most that do end up wiping to it.

HoundofShadow

For years, players have been complaining about how MPQ is Marvel Passive Quest. All players need to do each battle is to match, match, fire high damage power, or match, match while passive attack triggers each turn, or match, match, increase damage by crazy amount and the match ends.

The dev brought back the Puzzle in Marvel Puzzle Quest by giving us Chasm. With Chasm, you can't match, match and do any of the above. Players need to think consciously and strategise before they match.

It reminds me of the time when the dev brought back Heroics and players complained how the requirements were restrictive. When was the last time Heroic event was run? Or when Places of Power was released, it was a mini-puzzle that required alliances to work together to figure out the optimal route. In the end, many players were unhappy when the ex-dev didn't reveal the answer to the puzzle before the event starts.

Let's be honest, players are not interested in a real Puzzle. Why bother asking the dev to shake up events by coming up with different win conditions? And I want to say that Puzzle Ops is not a true puzzle because the mode is either too easy or too luck based.

Anyway, we can only agree to disagree on available counters to Chasm/iHulk team. You'll continue to wait for the "right" Chasm/iHulk counter while I continue to use my counter team that puts a target on my back and also to help me hit 1200 in 18-22 wins.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm not seeing the same on-season point drops in my bracket. I'm in Slice 1 for Namora, and with 1d 8hrs left, the top 10 range from 1000pts up to 1429. The event we just finished, even though I chose not to grind up past 900, it looked like the folks up top were still way over full progression on points like usual. But there could be a delta between the top 10 and everyone else I wasn't looking at.

the t10 in my PVP Season standings ranges from 3,926 up to 6,263, and we've only got the one pick-2 that's closed, simulator, and the current Namora to have gotten that many across, so on average we're looking at 2,000pts/event which surely isnt the real spread.

Bowgentle

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I'm not seeing the same on-season point drops in my bracket. I'm in Slice 1 for Namora, and with 1d 8hrs left, the top 10 range from 1000pts up to 1429. The event we just finished, even though I chose not to grind up past 900, it looked like the folks up top were still way over full progression on points like usual. But there could be a delta between the top 10 and everyone else I wasn't looking at.

the t10 in my PVP Season standings ranges from 3,926 up to 6,263, and we've only got the one pick-2 that's closed, simulator, and the current Namora to have gotten that many across, so on average we're looking at 2,000pts/event which surely isnt the real spread.

Top end in Cyclops PVP was close to 3k.

HoundofShadow

Deathlok is actually the best counter against Chasm/iHulk in 4* land because he could:

1) help his team gain up to 3 aps in the team top 2 strongest colour every turn, which means up to 6 aps per turn
2) increase ally damage dealt by fixed amount, up to 10x. In 4* land it's 348*10 = 3480.
3) reduces AoE by 25% and single target damage by 40%
4) Switch to pseudo-passive AoE mode for 5-turn.

Unfortunately, initial impression I get from players is that he's a SC-wannabe. However, if you are a 4* player reading this, he's a really good counter. You could pair him with Silk to get passive healing and damage going on every turn. You probably get 1+1 ap per turn but Chasm will forever be trapped in a loop reducing the top colour by up to 3 while you are happily matching away other coloured tiles without it being reduced as long as the right character is tanking.

Now, if Deathlok is a 5*, he will hard counter Chasm/iHulk to death. If Deathlok is increasing ally damage by up to 3480 @ level 270 as a 4*, it's likely to be as high as 17k-20k per turn for 5*. However, he would get into the 5* nerf list for being broken by slowing down matches and gaining free aps for his allies every turn. It's like dealing with 5* Gambit Version 1.0 + 5* SW combined.

Here's the video:

https://streamable.com/6o4ywc

You can replace SW with other appropriate characters. Look at how useless Chasm has become when Deathlok is in the match.

Bad

@HoundofShadow said:

Anyway, we can only agree to disagree on available counters to Chasm/iHulk team. You'll continue to wait for the "right" Chasm/iHulk counter while I continue to use my counter team that puts a target on my back and also to help me hit 1200 in 18-22 wins.

Great for you, if your MMR lets you enjoy the new meta and the queues still worth more than 60 points.
Personally I will get ~500 points and t50 and the extra amount of time gained I will play another fun game I've found meanwhile.
You think highly on devs bringing the puzzle back, I think more about a lack of testing the character with Ihulk, something that we pointed on his release but probably they didn't notice and they didn't want to listen.
Ultimately the game is the one losing with bad decisions, sadly.

Bowgentle

@Bad said:

@HoundofShadow said:

Anyway, we can only agree to disagree on available counters to Chasm/iHulk team. You'll continue to wait for the "right" Chasm/iHulk counter while I continue to use my counter team that puts a target on my back and also to help me hit 1200 in 18-22 wins.

Great for you, if your MMR lets you enjoy the new meta and the queues still worth more than 60 points.
Personally I will get ~500 points and t50 and the extra amount of time gained I will play another fun game I've found meanwhile.
You think highly on devs bringing the puzzle back, I think more about a lack of testing the character with Ihulk, something that we pointed on his release but probably they didn't notice and they didn't want to listen.
Ultimately the game is the one losing with bad decisions, sadly.

Lol that was a quick turnaround from "YOU'RE THE BEST, BCS, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!"

HoundofShadow

This is what the dev said before Chasm was revealed

"We're super excited about this character! Really looking forward to talking more about ??? when we make the official reveal. As for power complexity, we felt particularly comfortable about ability nuance because they are all passive. This is definitely a character that players can jump in and have a blast just matching tiles with, but the skillcap has the potential to be very high for those that want to be more methodical about their strategy.

Thanks for receiving the ability descriptions well! We're doing our best to create characters that are interesting. Part of that means being bold and experimental. Part of that means embracing that this game has a huge roster of characters and abilities which sometimes means some extra depth to make these characters really stand out in the crowd!"

@Bad Edit: I went to read the first few pages of Chasm thread, and it's funny to see how you were so excited about Chasm shaking up the meta to completely hating him now.

Also, up till mid October, no one was talking about playing against iHulk/Chasm at all. Players were talking about Chasm was easy to beat. The last post was made in November 1 talking about how pvp is boring. This is the time where Chasm/iHulk hits pvps.

Bad

@HoundofShadow said:

@Bad Edit: I went to read the first few pages of Chasm thread, and it's funny to see how you were so excited about Chasm shaking up the meta to completely hating him now.

And did you lose your time to go and read that?
I'm usually excited about any 5* release so you could had save that.
Also I remember I said this character has passives worthy of a 6*, so I wasn't really off.
By the way, I see you all quite happy with my last words but this isn't the first time I do this. On hulkoye era I went for 500 points too, as I think I never signed in any contract forcing me to play pvp if I find it boring. I resumed playing for all points after SW was released, though,and I will do it again if pvp regains it diversity.