How do you handle Bishop-Gritty in 4* land?
AlexR
Posts: 158 Tile Toppler
It's difficult enough as a 4* player who lacks a useable Bishop (mine is 1/1/1) to counter GRocket/Kitty aka Gritty, but I've managed to climb on Grittys enough to get the Magik cover from Sim. (Medusa/Kraven/Iceman. Kraven and Medusa do damage control until Iceman can stun Kitty forever. It's not pretty, but it kinda works most of the time. Talking about severly undercovered Kitty, btw. I'm auto-skipping any too well-covered ones.)
Anyway-- so, Gritty's bad enough. But more and more teams are starting to have Bishop. Bishop on his own or Bishop/XFDP are already annoying too, but I can Vulture/G4mora my way around them. Stun stun stun. Mostly workable.
But what in the world am I supposed to do against Gritty+Bishop teams? They're starting to multiply, there's already lots more than last season and I have no idea how to beat that. I can't Kraven that, because Bishop. And without Kraven'ing that, I don't have enough time to stun things before Kitty gets out of hand. This is my roster, btw. Help appreciated.
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but if there is bishop on the enemy team I skip. too much headache.
Looking at who you have champed on your roster, I'd say your best bet is Gamora/ME Hulk/America.
Make sure Hulk is set to make 2 swaps per turn *and* do maximum tile destruction on turn 1. Boost 1 AP in all colors so America generates Crits immediately. Ideally order America in the middle slot so her critical tile is placed *before* Hulks swap in case it doesn't match immediately when placed.
The goal here is to cause so much board shake (initial from ME Hulk that can destroy Rockets strikes, then from 2 potential matches per turn from Hulks swaps and finally from America generating critical tiles on turn 2) that you get rid of 4+ strikes by turn 3 or so and Kitty is then useless.
Gamora is there to stun Bishop (you can use Iceman too if you prefer) although Bishop shouldn't jump in front much (you are targeting Kitty first) unless a critical from America pushes across the damage theshold (not sure it will or not).
KGB
Try to get Dazzler in front by making a match, make sure to target Bishop, and when they hit you, Dazzler's stuns Bishop and removes several enemy strikes. Nico buffs your own tiles like a poor man's Kitty and can even true heal herself.
Nico is nice in this combo because she will keep your initial damage low enough to not trigger Bishop for a couple of turns (as opposed to 5-star match damage from Kitty), but, once Nico gets a head of steam, the strikes still get pretty beefy. I relied on her heavily in 4-star land.
You can still run Kitty/Rocket/Dazzler, but, it's harder to get Dazzler in front as Dazzler will likely only tank black with Kitty in the mix and Kitty's match damage might trigger Bishop earlier. For 5-star players, Gritty/Dazzler might be viable, but, for 4-star I would use Nico instead.
I have a deeper roster so I used Xpool/Peggy/Bishop to wreck those teams (Peggy stuns enemy Bishop/Kitty on turn 2 or 3) and GrockMorDusa teams for the last 200 points.
Once I hit 2000 for the Magik cover I stopped and went unshielded for the last 12 hours of the season. In that time I racked up 6 defensive wins and only 5 losses (for 80 points total). So Bishop is a highly effective deterrent on defense but he's not great for climbing (I used GrockMorDusa to go from 0-1800 without using a single health pack and only 25 fights).
KGB
He used xpool/peggy/bishop specifically for gritty/bishop teams but that team was not his go to team.
Any time a character or combo dominates it gets frustrating. That being said the current dominating teams can all be beat by multiple options. Which actually is good for the game. You do not need bishop to beat bishop. In the right team your own bishop can make it easier, but there are other options.
You want max points in hulks shuffle and gamora stun (so she stuns 2 enemies). And start with blue boosts. Hopefully with both medusa and gamora tossing out specials you can stay ahead of kitty purple.
On a blue-starved board, it can be a bit dice-y if MEHulk hasn't managed to let you match the strike tiles --but between Medusa sometimes generating blue from matching strike tiles and MEHulk's tile swap, you have a surprisingly good chance of getting yourself unstuck. And since a Kitty/GRocket/Bishop team doesn't have room for Medusa on it, matching the strike tiles is a lot less annoying than in a standard Kitty/GRocket/Medusa team. I thought I'd run into problems with bringing too little damage with this team, but actually that wasn't an issue.
Bishop is a very good defensive deterrent, but beatable. I think he is actually more dangerous for 5* rosters since typically the best way to fight him is with slow chip damage to his teammates (which 5*'s cannot do) or stunning him. He goes down very fast vs 5*'s but does a decent chunk of damage and generates tons of blue really quick.