New Character - Red Skull (Johann Schmidt) 5*

The more I use this guy the more I like him!

He works amazingly well with Dark Beast and Killgrave too> @MCPenance said:

Great videos @Bustapup! A very intriguing character. I wouldn't mind a new meta with this playstyle that isn't speed related at all.

Are you still running him 3/5/5 in these clips?

Yeah 3/5/5 in these but I've experimented a bit with 5/3/5 and it's still strong!

So after a LOT of playing around with this guy I'm comfortable saying I think his best build is by far 3/5/5/

The black gains a lot of damage at 5 covers but if you're running him with Zemo, the sheer power of the synergy is coming from the amount of hydra tiles on the board and even against characters that create special tiles, it only removes one tile reach time a hydra tiles expires.

Zemo (3/5/5) and now Viper (3/5/5) make it so easy to flood the board with hydra tiles and this is boosting damage and improving utility in the entire team.

Zemo's damage is affected by the number of hydra tiles
Vipers damage is affected by the number of tiles
Skulls blue powers up everything else based on the number of special tiles so the that is still making his black deal a lot of damage whilst still maximising his red and blue

The synergy is insane.

What is the rotation looking like? I can't seem to find when sunspot was released. I had previously thought about pulling for Frankie Raye, but sounds like Zemo/Skull might be a good combo.

Would you take Skull over Frankie? Does Skull need Zemo to be great?

@heybub said:
What is the rotation looking like? I can't seem to find when sunspot was released. I had previously thought about pulling for Frankie Raye, but sounds like Zemo/Skull might be a good combo.

Would you take Skull over Frankie? Does Skull need Zemo to be great?

The order of characters is/was:

Frankie
Zemo
Sunspot
Skull

Frankie is definitely the best known character of the 4 available and probably will be for a while. I still think she was a soft test for a 6* given all her resistances and cheap aoe.

I would definitely pull as much as possible before she leaves next Wednesday night.

The others are amusing and effective but not as fast or as reliable nor as simple to use with existing characters. Hydra seems relatively good but you need to build them all up since they’re all basically new.

@JoeHandle said:

@heybub said:
What is the rotation looking like? I can't seem to find when sunspot was released. I had previously thought about pulling for Frankie Raye, but sounds like Zemo/Skull might be a good combo.

Would you take Skull over Frankie? Does Skull need Zemo to be great?

No, no wouldn't not. The Hydra people need each other to be worth a flip. so you would lock yourself in to having to build all of them, and use them together. Zero flexibility or variety.

Frankie is not great on her own, but, like a lego brick, does one thing well that can be combined in many ways with many other bricks to solve many problems.

Ummmm Frankie is definitely great on her own. Is she better with others? Yep. But is she good on her own? Absolutely. Not sure why you think she isn't great on her own.

@heybub said:
What is the rotation looking like? I can't seem to find when sunspot was released. I had previously thought about pulling for Frankie Raye, but sounds like Zemo/Skull might be a good combo.

Would you take Skull over Frankie? Does Skull need Zemo to be great?

Frankie in her meta teams is ridiculously OP often with the near instant team damage on turn one followed by airborne attacks.

Outside her meta, however, I don't think she's that great because she's completely reliant on charged tiles to function. If I see Frankie then I install pop in Sebastian Shaw and once MThor is out of the picture she's pretty useless. He literally stops her green from doing any damage after the first hit

I'd say Skull is more versatile and easier to slot into a wider range of teams.

Skull doesn't need Zemo, Zola or Viper in the way that Zemo, Zola and Viper need skull and indeed, need at least one other

Skull can slot into any team and is brilliant at removing tiles, dealing damage, and providing a huge damage buff with his blue ability that is pretty self sufficient. Does it ramp up faster with other special tiles creators? Yes it does, but his abilities produce enough special tiles on their own that it's still impactful

Zemo needs Hydra tiles to really pop off, so he needs Skull or Viper to be fully utilised, even though his black and yellow abilities are a bit more universal.

You also need to protect the tiles, but it's often so easy to create a lot of them that it's not a problem. However, if I come up against MThor, I usually swap Zemo or Viper out for Killgrave and stun her to mitigate that

I've used Skull with so many different teams and found his blue damage boost to be absolutely insane

@MgoBlue51 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bustapup said:

@Borstock said:

@LavaManLee said:

@JoeHandle said:

@heybub said:
What is the rotation looking like? I can't seem to find when sunspot was released. I had previously thought about pulling for Frankie Raye, but sounds like Zemo/Skull might be a good combo.

Would you take Skull over Frankie? Does Skull need Zemo to be great?

No, no wouldn't not. The Hydra people need each other to be worth a flip. so you would lock yourself in to having to build all of them, and use them together. Zero flexibility or variety.

Frankie is not great on her own, but, like a lego brick, does one thing well that can be combined in many ways with many other bricks to solve many problems.

Ummmm Frankie is definitely great on her own. Is she better with others? Yep. But is she good on her own? Absolutely. Not sure why you think she isn't great on her own.

Play her, unboosted, with Anti-Venom and 5* Natasha.

Then play her with Iron Man and mThor. Or with iHulk and someone.

She's not that good on her own at high levels, except to cheese some of PvE. She's game-breaking with synergy.

Regarding the Hydra teams.... Listen to Joe. As of today, you kinda need them all for it to get stupid. And that's a major commitment. Not necessarily a bad one if you love the way they play, but major.

I'd say Skull might be the exception to this as he really can fit into a variety of teams and be impactful. He definitely thrives with his B.I.S teammates but he's not a slouch without them either

His personal damage and utility make him much more flexible than Frankie

They're different kinds of characters. Frankie has a 6AP AoE that's castable off of supports (sometimes twice!), comes with free defense, and does pretty big damage.

Red Skull really needs to get his red out (and there's just the one red support that's restricted-equip), have it survive on the board and then tick a couple times.

In a game where speed and consistency matter as much as they do, it's hard to make a case for a character like Red Skull, who can do big damage but needs time and for some stuff to go his way. By the time he can even cast his red you've eaten several rounds of AoE from Frankie.

I wish they'd start slowing the game down a bit, but that's just not where we're at.

Proxima midnight support gives red and needs a villain

Yeah I agree I did mention this in an earlier comment (her near instant team wide damage on turn one is OP but skull has more utility) but I think his blue is more impactful than his red. If you cast it and you're using snack cart you get a decent damage bonus that gets stronger every time a special is created. If you use him with Hawkeye, Killgrave, Avalon, any character with Low Level AI, Polaris, dark beast etc..... you can easily spam special tiles and get huge flat damage bonuses quite easily.

The reality is that Franky needs charged tiles otherwise she's pretty much useless

But I wish they slow it down too. One turn wins are boring

@Read_Only said:
I 550'd Nova with the current vault. Getting Sunspot and Zemo to 510ish. I will try and get Red Skull to 550 when he drops in while finishing off Sunspot and Zemo. I might not quite get Skull there but I can then finish him off as a fav.

Fed by Zola and Viper. If you max+max both of them, they will pay out 18 covers for Skull along the way.