2 Star Character Guide: Original Black Widow

Black Widow's Original cover (commonly OBW) is one of the premier two star characters. The powers are excellent for both PVP and PVE situations, and her covers tend to be relatively available as event rewards.

Purple - Aggressive Recon: Her purple power, Aggressive Recon, steals the enemies AP. In PVP, this is one of the single most key moves you can have. The outcome of a match-up is often determined by which players uses this move first. The pain of losing your own AP is only outweighed by the pain of seeing the enemy gain so much AP. At the highest level, she steals 4 of each color, meaning a swing of 8 in each color. It is a little less useful in PVE match ups, but still helps slow the enemy and keep your team moving forward. This move should always be at 5/5.

Blue - Anti-Gravity Device: Her blue power, Anti-Gravity Device, used to actually be the single most powerful power, but was hit hard with a nerf. Currently, it either increases the timer on enemy countdown tiles, or if none are present, heals each team member. At 5/5, it extends the countdown timers and offers some healing, at all lower levels it does one or the other. In PVP, this move is pretty useful for the healing powers, and situationally useful if the opponent uses countdown timers. In PVE, this move is incredibly useful if you want to try and avoid damage to extend your playtime. The healing doesn't extend past the end of the match (this is the nerf, it used to be possible to always heal up before the final blow and enjoy less downtime), but it still is a nice boost to avoid a loss.

Black - Espionage: OBW's black power is a passive, known as Espionage. When making a black, purple, or blue match, you steal 1 of that color AP and do additional damage. This move looks much more useful than it is. The stealing of AP is helpful, as it does suppress the enemy and can help boost your own reserves, but it doesn't completely imbalance the game like a well timed Aggressive Recon will. The damage boost is nice, but also keep in mind that using this power means putting OBW first and subjecting her relatively low life bar to abuse. Also, black and purple tend to be the least popular colors, so its unlikely that your PVP opponent is going to miss them, and your PVE opponent almost certainly doesn't care.

PVP Summary: Purple power is an absolute game changer, blue and black are both strong. OBW does have some low health and is subject to one shotting.

PVE Summary: Blue power is absurdly strong in PVE for both timer delay and healing, and low hitpoints tend to be less of a liability.

Team-Up: Aggressive Recon is an outstanding choice, and Anti-Gravity Device is a good choice as well, although without Espionage both can take a little longer to charge. Still, you cannot go wrong with either.

Match-ups: Anyone strong in blue, black, or purple powers.

Counters: OBW is very strong against Marvel NOW Magneto and Modern Hawkeye as both rely heavily on countdown tiles. OBW is also the only counter to the truly unfair Speed Shot. Anti-Gravity Device also works surprisingly well against Ares' Sunder timer.