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.

Webslinger and Starfall

Webslinger Wrap Up 

I had a nice result from the Webslinger event, finishing in the top 100 of my group, and scoring a yellow Sentry cover. I found my team very effective in the Spiderman event, plus my gaming timing was good. My classic Spidey sits at level 70, although I'm covered up through 91. I've never really been a huge fan of the Spiderman, but I do remember when the lack of 3 star characters made him much more valuable. Since I'm covered across all moves, my Spiderman was almost always more effective than the opposition's. Spider-sense provided some nice damage control, although it made redundant Classic Magneto's yellow. Web Bandages is a good get out of jail move, but with the healing changes I generally didn't waste much AP on it. 

I was a little surprised at how frequently I used All Tied Up. Mine sits at 5 AP for a 1 turn stun (2 with 3+ web tiles). I never found myself staring a a lot of web tiles, but at the low cost of 5 AP, I found it made a decent finisher. I could often stun the last guy for two, maybe three, turns and get out of the match without any additional damage. I also made use of it to avoid an imminent Call the Storm. 

Starfall Event 

Now begins the Starfall event. I personally dislike Sentry with his "high risk, high reward" moves. While its true that you can use him to take down pretty much anyone, he always needs a rest after. Mine sits at level 63, which will be helpful as a damage sponge during the event. 

Sentry is a popular character, so expect high level players to also have a leveled and boosted Sentry. The 3 star cover reward is Mystique, whom isn't very popular, but is new enough to where some players may be excited to add her to their collection. 

Pro-Tips! 

Keep in mind that Sentry is extremely vulnerable to protect tiles! Since World Rupture tracks each countdown tile as a separate attack, a few protect tiles can completely reduce the incoming damage, while still causing damage to the deploying team.  

Sentry is also somewhat vulnerable to moves that attack enemy special tiles. Daredevil's Radar Sense can get some revenge on moves like Sacrifice, and Moonstone could theoretically steal a World Rupture tile. 

Otherwise, moves that clear a lot of tiles are useful to have on hand, in case a World Rupture or Sacrifice is otherwise undefended. Hulk Clap can help with removal, as can Captain America's moves. 

2 Star Character Guide: Ares

Ares - Dark Avengers

Ares is a dangerous foe with strong moves that often have a significant downside. He is a powerful, if temperamental, character, strong in both PVP and PVE combat. 

Green - Onslaught: Ares’ green power is Onslaught. For 7 AP, Ares does high damage to the enemy target. For each additional AP over 7 available, he can do extra damage. However, the enemy gets half of the green AP consumed returned to them. Thus, this move can lead to some devastating counter attacks if the enemy team is strong in green. In the alternative, if the enemy has no use for green AP, this move becomes very strong. Additionally, 7 AP is a relatively low amount to set off a very strong attack. At times, Onslaught can be very spammy. It also requires a deft touch, as burning 20 green AP on an overkill is much less effective that using 10 AP on two different enemies. In PVP, it all depends on what powers the enemy team has. In PVE, this is a great source of damage output with minimal downsides. 

Red - Rampage: Rampage is Ares’ red power, and like his others it is situational. It does damage to the entire enemy team, and excellent feature, and it does close to double damage if Ares himself is at low health. At five covers you have some wiggle room (he must be below 30% health) but it still can be difficult to get the damage to stop in this range. When it does, however, this move can really turn the tide of the game. It only costs 10 AP, but can cause immense team damage. In PVP events, as long as the enemy does not finish him off, Rampage is an excellent move. In PVE it is effective for doing team damage, but makes less of an impact. 

Yellow - Sunder: Sunder is a very unique move. It does high damage, but also causes damage to Ares. A countdown is then placed, and when the countdown goes off, it does more damage to the enemy and heals Ares. The base damage is very high, but it returns close to half to Ares. The countdown add nice damage, but still does not heal the full amount lost. Thus, this move is always going to leave you in a worse state than when activated. Also, if the countdown gets stopped, it move becomes less damaging to the opponent and more damaging to Ares. Also, if the initial strike finishes the match, Ares takes the damage but does not have a chance to heal. This move is great for winning battles, but it does reduce the overall playtime and effectiveness of Ares as a cover. In PVP events it becomes a high risk, but very high reward, move. In PVE, the risk is mitigated significantly. 

PVP Summary: A very popular choice, since he has good hit points and crushing, low cost special moves. Ares can take down many teams with ease. 

PVE Summary: Ares is slightly above average in PVE. He causes good damage and tanks well. 

Team Up: Any are good, each carries with it the pros and cons of the original moves. 

Match-Ups: Ares matches well with The Hood’s countdown reducing power, and characters with healing moves like Black Widow.  

Counters: Ares is a good counter for tanks or any character that has strong healing and is tough to kill. The extremely high damage special moves make eating through hit points or healing powers much easier. 

The Good and The Bad

The off-season is always a nice time to indulge in some PvE, so I went through a lot of the Rocket and Groot event. Ended up clearing all the rewards without working too hard, and I didn't have that last blue cover, so I'll take it.

I actually found this event to be pretty good. Like usual, I mostly cleared the mob nodes, and generally ignored the computer controlled opponents. I also don't have any Star Lord covers, but I do have a maxed OBW and a 84 Wolvie that covered me well.

As for the off-season PvP event, that one was a massive disappointment, as I missed hitting 300 by 5 points. I could have easily done this, but I just sort of forgot about the end of the event.

As a rule, I always try to hit 300 in all PvP events. The heroic event token alone is worth it, plus during the season is almost guarantees a 10 pack result. My Gold Storm has 4 covers, putting her at a solid 63 without boosts, so I should have pulled better here.