2025 MPQ Progression Guide

@C0r3 said:
@bbigler I'm currently returning to the game and things are very different with ascending supports etc. I'm looking forward to the updated guide, hopefully

I'm working on updating it now. What specific things do you want to know?

Alright! First, I'll answer your questions and then ask some questions because advice is dependent on what you have and how you play.

1. Spending will speed things along, but it takes a lot of money. Spending is like a temporary boost in progress. Spend money to get the thing you need the most. What will actually make a difference to your gameplay? Covers? ISO? Roster Slots? Until you have everyone rostered, I would spend money on deals that give the most HP, such as 2,000 HP for $10 or 4,000 HP for $20 (plus other stuff). Lightning deals are the best value, so wait and watch what comes along. Lightning vaults are also good deals. Just consider the cost versus what gameplay improvement you would have. Rostering everyone to farm rewards is harder to see the progress though. I normally wouldn't buy deals that offer covers, supports or shards directly. Sometimes a lightning deal for 250K ISO for $7 comes along and I'll buy that.
2. The main driver of your progress is how much time you spend playing the game, but your reward farms will build up over time, producing more and more as time goes on. Imagine all your covers going toward high level champ rewards (levels 300 - 550) and that's what farming can do. The ISO, HP, CP and LT production is beyond what you can imagine now. So, building up each character to farm rewards from them is progress even if your fighting teams are still the same. The daily time you spend playing makes a bigger impact on rewards though. Essentially, you're trying to build up 2 things at the same time: your fighting teams and your farms. Better fighting teams allows you to fight tougher battles and get better rewards. Farming allows you to get better rewards too.
3. Are you playing all events? Extracting all possible rewards from every event? I know that takes a lot of time, but that's how you would speed along your progress, trust me. Your development speed is the most important factor here - you can literally catch up with older players if you play harder than them.
4. As for transitioning, you want to level up right away. Don't wait to champ better characters, don't be afraid of PVP. PVE will get easier, of course, if you have stronger fighters. But there are plenty of other players just like you in PVP. They're at your level and don't have the "perfect" roster. If you want an advantage in PVP, then simply champ/level up the best characters, and this includes champing characters to counter other hard teams, such as Morbius. Play the highest SCL level in PVE that you can handle (meaning, you can still win).
5. It's hard for me to say what specific actions you should take without knowing your roster. The top characters I mentioned are not ordered in any specific way. They're all useful for different reasons. It appears that you are working at the 3-Star level (<=266). It appears that you have 4s and 5s but haven't champed them. So, I'll imagine what you do have and make some suggestions:

Suggestions
1. Roster the toons you have the most covers for, unless they're top tier, then roster them no matter how many covers you have. Rostering everyone opens up nodes in PVE and thus rewards. Champing everyone opens up those champ rewards, obviously. I would focus on rostering and champing featured characters in events because you get the most covers/shards for them.
2. Polaris, BRB and MThor are some of the best. Supports like Low Level AI and Lucky go well with them. What levels are they at? If they're not champed, then champ them all and play SCL 10. They can handle it. They can also handle PVP - but this doesn't mean you will be immune to attacks. Being attacked in PVP is normal. I would suggest getting some early wins, build up your PVP points and then do a final climb near the end and then use a shield, being 8 hrs or 3 hrs. This is minimal HP usage that returns some good rewards. Also, are you in a good alliance?
3. Who do you favorite? Well, it depends who you have and who you want to get. But here's some suggested teams for new players:

3a4-Aunt May + 3-Namor + Any 5-Star (preferrably Colossus): Aunt May boosts the match damage of the 5-Star toon, which is then duplicated by Namor at 125%, which is then tripled by Aunt May. So, the random enemy hit from Namor is 3 times harder than the initial match dmg hit. Add in Fantasticar for cascades and more match damage buffing, and you have a killer team! Add in Krakoa or Refreshment Cart on Namor for frequent critical hits too, quickly ending the battle. MThor is not a bad choice here because she has her own built in cascade generator. But ascend Aunt May because her abilities get really good at the 4-Star tier. You can also use an ascended 1a5-toon, like Spiderman, and when they're boosted, which is often, will hit very hard.

Aunt May makes everyone better - you could even combine her buff with 4-Moonstone to double buff any Thunderbolt damage by 375%! Moonstone herself is a winfinite too.

Shang is a great addition to MThor - capable of taking down big boosted teams in PVP.

Omega is even greater with Aunt May - striking fear into the hearts of many.

I've yet to experiment with Captain Britain and BRB / Polaris. Britain's purple AOE can hit really hard under the right circumstances.

You probably already know about the 4-Rocket + Polaris = 4-Juggernaut team. They can handle most things in PVE SCL 10.

Ascended 2-Electro with MThor - this pairing is perfect as Electro uses all the colors that MThor does not. They both create tons of charged tiles and can go winfinite - but you need a strong enough Electro for him to contribute in damage. Try it out and put Refreshment Cart on Electro because he needs lots of green.

Ascended 1-Stars: once these 1s get to the 5-Star level, they're dangerous - particularly Spiderman, Juggs, Yelena and Hawkeye. I would wait for their boost week and then play these teams:
a. Boosted 1a5-Spiderman + 3a4-Aunt May: Use Red & Purple AP Boosts (including supports) to quickly kill using Spiderman's Red or Purple. It's simple and effective.
b. Boosted 1a5-Juggs + 3a4-Aunt May: Use Red & Green AP Boosts (including supports) to quickly kill. This is more of a PVP scarecrow team because of Jugg's extremely high health pool!
c. Boosted 1a5-Yelena + 4-Moonstone: Use Yellow & Black AP Boosts (including supports) to quickly go winfinite with Moonstone and kill using Yelena's Black attack. Matching Yelena's Blue Traps helps with more damage plus feeds Moonstone's Yellow winfinite. Put Refreshment Cart on Moonstone here. If needed, you can double stun with Moonstone's Purple. In a Pick-3 team, add in Aunt May for even more damage!
d. Boosted 1a5-Hawkeye + 3-Namor: Use Purple AP Boosts (including supports) to quickly make critical hits which are duplicated by Namor. Hawkeye alone can go winfinite with his purple and red powers going back and forth. Of course, Namor has a black power to place criticals as well. In a Pick-3 team, add in Aunt May for even more damage!

Favoriting:
You can probably see a pattern here - favorite and ascend 3*Aunt May to level 370, then work on 3-Namor. Choose your own adventure at the 4-tier, but 4-Juggs is very good ascended. As for the 5s, favorite and champ the top toons that you don't yet have. It's all about forming killer teams, but don't neglect the farms - they are the rewards engine that drives you.

@C0r3
You're on the right track with most things.

3-Star Level: Ascending Aunt May first, then Namor second. But I wouldn't stop at ascending them to level 270. Keep adding more levels to them until May reaches 370 and Namor gets ascended to 450 and beyond. Their power can take you to the next level, but this is a long term plan. 3-Thanos is also killer at the 5-star level and useful in PVE to do very fast clears. The only other 3s worth favoriting are the Lightning Round 3s. I've seen many people take 3-Magneto up to level 550, and then he gets a 50% level boost to 799, which equates to a health pool of 1 million and equally high match damage. But that's a very long term plan.

4-Star Level: Polaris, Rocket, Juggs, Chavez are all top 10 characters there. If you have trouble with SAP teams (i.e. Polaris), then favorite and champ Morbius. He shuts them all down, including PVE goons. Multiple Man can be exploited to win against anyone. Moonstone has a built in winfinite and works well with many characters. Some 4s are only killer when ascended, like Coulson and M'Baku. I've been beaten by an ascended Doop where he had the powers of Juggs and Chavez. My advice here is to champ the top 10 and then focus on ascending them, 1 by 1. Don't worry about champing the rest of the tier right now, just roster them for PVE (and save covers until you have the ISO to champ).

5-Star Level: Even for new players, this is a 5-Star game, which means that your 4s are really just supporting characters for your 5s. Polaris enhances BRB, Rocket enhances Kitty, Chavez enhances Shang, Deathlok enhances Kang, Moonstone enhances Electro and ascended May greatly enhances Omega. Now some 3s and 4s become a power unto themselves when ascended to 5-Star, such as Namor, Juggs, M'Baku, Coulson and Rocket. My point is that you should be focusing on building 5-Star teams. Particularly a Pick-2 5-Star Team that will give you wins in PVP. And once you have a good team established, start building another team, hopefully a better one. This team building includes supports because they're just as important. So my advice here is to have goals for the teams you want to make.

Is MThor your only 5-Star champ? If so, who would be her best partner in PVP? Shang is a popular choice and so is ascended Polaris, but that would take you a long time to do. I believe your best move is to go after the low hanging fruit of the 5-Star tier, which means focusing on the Latest Legends. They are certainly the easiest 5s to champ; and mid-tier 5s are better than top tier 4s in a fight. Your BRB at 8 covers would be in that category of low hanging fruit. Sam is great but his best partners are Mephisto and ascended Juggs, which would take you a long time to get. The trap that a lot of players fall into is pursuing their dream team no matter how long it takes. So their progress is halted for months (or years) pursuing that dream team, but I've learned that it's better to have incremental steps along the way. Which means pursuing teams that are obtainable in the short term and will improve your fighting power or options.

If I was in your position, I would favorite and champ BRB to play with Polaris. You have an ace up your sleeve with Omni-City at Level 4! Make sure that's at level 200 and use it on BRB or MThor. Do you have Krakoa? It works great on Polaris to start with extra Blue. Once you discover how good this team is, you may want to ascend Polaris ASAP.

For the time being, MThor with Polaris isn't bad, but definitely level up and use Omni-City on MThor if you aren't already. Even a level 2 Refreshment Cart is very handy - put that on Polaris to generate 1 Blue with every power you fire. Once you get Chavez champed, try her out with MThor, especially with Critical Damage boosts. I can't say that BRB works well with MThor though.

Why are you favoriting Sam? What team are you thinking of making with him? Are you able to champ Gorr anytime soon? Because Gorr would be a good 4-star partner with Sam, plus Gorr can carry Omni-City. Gorr is also a good partner for the Latest 5s of Hob Goblin and Toni Ho. Bucky and Moonstone (both new) also pair well together. Deathlok is a good partner for the new Elsa Bloodstone or Toni Ho. I don't know if you're hoarding LT and CP, but I wouldn't. The Latest 5s are the easiest to fully cover and the more champed 5s you have, the more chances you'll have to play with boosted 5s.

I'm guessing you use Juggs-Rocket-Polaris in PVE? It sounds like PVE is pretty easy for you. Do you qualify for SCL 10? If so, play it and get better rewards. As for PVE placement, I'd recommend not joining a PVE event until an hour or two after it starts. The initial rank you get when joining shows how many other players are in that bracket at that moment. Then you'll be grouped with more casual players and placement will be much easier, like getting top 50. The real challenge of the game is PVP - making 2 character combos (with supports) to not only win tough battles, but discourage attacks as well. That's the real game here.

Oh, I just noticed that you messaged me with your roster details - I'll check that out tomorrow.