The Irrelevant 7 III: The new 4*'s released since 10/16

There have been seven new 4* character released since October 2016 which makes it time for The Irrelevant 7 III. Before I begin this is not a comment on the quality of the characters. It is a comment on the chance of most players to effectively cover them. Which in the case of this particular group of seven is a real shame because when this group is appropriately covered and leveled there are some unique mechanics along with the expanding amount of passive abilities which make these such a strong group.

Ever since I began playing this game I wanted a character which allowed me to remove any annoying tile. Gwenpool finally gave me my wish. This is another deceptively powerful character because of the purple power where you can use a specific code to destroy nearly anything on the board no matter where it is placed. Read that sentence again you can destroy any specific tile on the board for 9 purple AP. Not only can you do that but you can also destroy entire classes with the right code. Strikes, attacks protects? Remove ‘em all. Bunch of annoying things in a corner of the board remove it all. Any row or column can be removed. Oh yeah you also do some damage along with this. The main damage dealer is the green power which requires you to remove the gun tile to activate it. Once it is you are firing three random 4000+ damage bullets for 9 green ap. Her black power puts out protects while sending her teammates airborne. One effect of firing this is it breaks stuns. Bobby or Switch got your guys stunned for four turns send them airborne and get them back. This is another character which gets much better the more covers and levels you put in to her. She is an awesome third to Black Bolt/Dr. Strange in PvE because her purple can take out any stray cds that get placed in places you can’t access any other way. She has been my consistent third for all-goon or 2-goon PvE nodes.

Bl4de is one of those characters which might not seem like he is particularly strong. All you have to do is play him in Balance of Power when all of the characters are on an equivalent level. That might change your mind. The red power which puts out strikes as a passive until you collect 9 red when it switches to its alternative Bloodlust when it starts doing damage at the beginning of every turn. With the strikes on the board this starts to do big damage. The green aoe is also a good deal of damage for 9 green ap. The black is not the reason to use Bl4de but there are situations where it can be useful. Bl4de is an under the radar powerhouse.

Agent Venom is a character that I think is similar to the way we thought of The Hood when he was first released. He is a technically difficult character to play well which means in the hands of the ai it will be played horribly. But the quick black damage with it hitting for 4K for 5AP is strong paired with any strike tile generator it can add up quickly. The drawback is you have to keep from getting up to 16 in any color. If it does the black starts doing damage to Agent Venom and destroys 9 random tiles. What? That sucks! Except the passive board shake can be a real plus depending on how things have shaken out. This requires having to pay attention to your ap pools as you play which is the techy part. Once I got the hang of it his black became really good but it is not something you can just match and mash. The red power can interact with the black because the damage it deals can nearly double by firing it with the right amount of ap in a single pool. See what I mean? Complicated. The yellow is aoe and turns the teammates invisible for four turns. This is a good power I wish was 10 ap instead of the 11ap it is. That one measly yellow ap makes a lot of difference because there were times I could have funneled damage onto Agent Venom but consistently seemed to be one ap short. He is best used in PvE because in PvP the ai will be playing him and doing it poorly.

Medusa is the pinnacle of the growing power of passive abilities. She is a burst healer, ap generator, and damage dealer all without doing anything but matching tiles on your turn. The star passive is her red which places a 4-turn cd at the beginning of any turn when there is not one on the board. At the end of the turn it does 700 damage. If it is matched or destroyed it produces 2X350 attack tiles. If you can match this tile every turn as it is placed you will have a board of attack tiles plus the cd rolling out 2-3K damage at the end of every turn. Then you move to the yellow passive. If those tiles get matched you gain burst healing for every one matched. Match an enemy special tile you gain a random 3ap in purple, green, or blue. The purple active isn’t bad as you swap tiles and if any of those are an enemy Strike, protect, or attack you steal it and buff it. It is awesome to steal muscle attack tiles with this in PvE. Medusa is a big annoyance to deal with as you have a consistent drip drip of damage coming every turn. There are now so many passive damage dealers Medusa gives them the third they needed.

What if you don’t just want to sit there you want to cast something, too? Then Captain Marvel is your choice. She has two awesome passives to start. The green one generates 4AP in your strongest color whenever the opponent makes a match in their strongest color. That means every three match in their strongest color gets you the same plus one in your strongest color. But there’s a kicker if the color is the same she deals 2k aoe to the enemy team. If that color happens to be black it accelerates right into her active a fortified 5-turn cd which produces a strike tile at the start of every turn. When it reaches zero it does over 10k damage. Five turns is a long time if you’re impatient you can use the yellow active which reduces any friendly cd to zero for 5ap. Plus there is a yellow passive that buffs two friendly tiles anytime a cd reaches zero. All you need to do to look for a partner is to look at the previous paragraph. Then add in any cd generator, Iron Man40 or Star Lord, spring to mind and you can swarm a board. I used this team in the recent Gauntlet very successfully. In Balance of Power, Peggy added to Carol and Medusa were as strong a team as there was.

Riri Williams is probably the worst of this seven but her red damage is huge. She is a counter to an opponent who generates special tiles on the same color. Her blue will draw them to the center of the board which as long as they are the same color they will match themselves away. Then her red will do 10k plus remove up to four special tiles. Her green does decent damage and sends an opponent airborne while also sending Riri airborne. This is a poorly designed power but it isn’t useless just nearly so.

Mordo is the most recent release and he is also a support kind of character. He generates black charged tiles with his black and blue powers. Which means any character which can take advantage of those is a good match for Mordo. The black does single damage and generates 3 black charged tiles. If it is cast with three or more black charged tiles on the board the damage is converted to aoe damage. Blue does damage and generates three black charged tiles. You can see how this fits together and it can come together to work nicely but at least early on I have found it to be clunky and not as synergistic as it could be. The purple is a stun plus blue, purple, and black ap steal. Working with Black Bolt he can help accelerate Bolt’s passive damage although there are probably other better choices.

To wrap this up Medusa, Captain Marvel, Bl4de, and Gwenpool are top tier 4* who get better the more covers and levels are put in to them. The remaining three; Agent Venom, Riri, and Mordo have significant drawbacks even though they all have potential in the right situation.

Unless something changes I’ll be back with The Irrelevant 7 Go Fourth after the next seven have been released.