Top 5 Most Overrated Heroes | Marvel Champions List

[@AncientSlumber]

Who is YOUR most overrated hero?

[@prufrock1977]

I don’t know the whole community perception in detail. But I think for me, it’s Miles Morales. I want to like him. I really do. He can do some cool stuff. But man, I don’t know what it is. He’s just like in my bottom five. I have him in the back of my other box with Thor and Ms. Marvel and Groot. (But I actually like Groot a lot, just only for a game or two every now and then). I would put him at a C-tier.

[@AncientSlumber]

@@prufrock1977 C-tier is a bit much for me for Miles, but he was almost on my list as well. I think he's good, but not very good

[@GetUpandGame]

Very interesting list! I think for cyclops it’s less about being able to find 10 good allies, and more about the fact that he could take the 10 best allies in a leadership act with uncanny X-Men and to me my X-Men. Those cards are so strong and he can make them work with the very best allies

[@WinningHandPodcast]

I agree on some of them! Nice video, thanks for doing it!

[@AncientSlumber]

Thanks for watching!

[@WinningHandPodcast]

@ of course! Been loving your videos

[@GetUpandGame]

This was really good! You always make your points so well and so clearly Any kind of power ranking always hits me weird because I care so so little about it, I just really try to enjoy every hero the way they’re meant to be enjoyed. Which sometimes means I have to play them in standard or against villains that aren’t quite so harsh for them. But I don’t mind that at all, and the fact I quite like it because I get the most enjoyment out of every hero that I can. So when I listen to power rankings I just have to constantly remind myself that my perspective on the game is pretty different I guess 😀

[@AncientSlumber]

Thank you! Everyone's just a different type of player (Spike, Johnny, Timmy) and enjoys different things, which is what makes games so interesting! I sometimes wish I enjoy just playing in a more chilled style and not care so much about winning or defeating the hardest content in the game, but I guess it's just in my nature lol

[@brotherzane636]

as a person who LOVES playing Cyclops, and he is my favorite hero, I agree with your assessment of him and how he plays. Honestly I tend to run about 5-6 allies in my Leadership deck for him, primarily focusing on Pixie and just recycling the allies I need, when I need them, otherwise He himself mostly thwarts. I will say I got majority of my use of "Optic Blast" when I made him an aggression deck, specifically after Magik's release. I will also admit that I ran him through the core box with the aggression build, and retooled the deck after for Gambit for much greater success.

[@AncientSlumber]

I really need to try him in aggression, I've only tried leadership so far

[@GetUpandGame]

Oof starting off rough lol, x-23 is very strong to me. Haha looking forward to the rest of the list! Edit: oh see now I view, honey badger as a nice to have, but not necessary. The fact that Laura can thwart, attack and defend every round effectively is why I like her so much and why I think she’s so good in solo Edit: totally agree on Angel. I love him, but I’ve never thought he was overly strong.

[@AncientSlumber]

lol, I knew I was gonna ruffle a lot of feathers with this one. I do think she's good without HB as well (I like her a lot in aggreession), but just not quite S tier for me

[@GetUpandGame]

@ oh, I don’t know S tier or a tier, I don’t rank heroes by power really. I just know when I play her, I feel like I’m pretty much always in control more than most heroes. But I also like I said don’t rely on honey badger for the very reasons you specified and I don’t only play the hardest difficulty scenarios. So we just have a pretty different perspective overall, which obviously it’s totally fine and allows for these types of discussions!

[@AncientSlumber]

@@GetUpandGame Yeah, makes total sense! I appreciate the discusssion as well, it's great to be able to share our opinions even if we don't always agree

[@VaultBoy13]

I don't think she's S-tier, but she's A-tier even if you're not leaning into Honey Badger. She's just incredibly consistent with very cheap cards. Honey Badger is icing on the cake that'd make her S-tier if you could consistently dodge the obligation. Black Window could consistently do it in a Protection field. Once you got her on the board, you'd be able to block the Obligation. Alternatively, with a Global Logistics build you could consistently look at the top cards of the deck and toss the obligation out. You could also use Blindfold, and then lean into that knowledge for Longshot and Gambit. Gambit could also tuck the obligation away for forever. But, these start to lean away from what X-23 wants to be doing and the cards she wants in her deck. So, I think Honey Badger is just stuck as the icing.

[@Stretch22_MarvelChampions]

I think it's a very good list! I think the community has a tendency to overrate these middle-of-the-pack heroes because they identify (correctly) that they can beat many expert scenarios, even the game's hardest. However, this is not really a differentiating factor as almost every hero in the game can consistently win on expert in the hands of a good deckbuilder and player. Only when you really stress test these heroes can you separate the best of the best from the great from the good. On some specific heroes you mention - I think Cyclops gets people to play more allies. Turns out, allies are very good! And most decks people play would likely improve with a few more allies. If you look at Cyclops's actual cards and not just the very strong ally-heavy decks people usually play with him, you can see he is a middle-tier hero. I massively agree with SP//dr as well. I think she is the quintessential case of a hero that feels extremely powerful once set up but can struggle to get there against hard scenarios that pressure the early turns. Still, not a D-tier hero by any means, but I'm always surprised when people rank her with the best in the game.

[@AncientSlumber]

Thanks! Great to hear that you agree with my list since you're the only other person I know who plays Heroic lol. The Cyclops point is very good, didn't think about it that way. I guess he does make people play more allies than usual, which makes sense why it makes him feel stronger.

[@prufrock1977]

I soooo agree with your number 3! I honestly haven’t played any of the others. So, if you rank her as overrated…I might have to look into your other rankings and comments. Like you, I don’t seem to click with her. She’s not enjoyable to play most of the time. And I am not a power gamer. So on the fun factor side of things, we still might have a lot in common.

[@AncientSlumber]

Haha, glad to hear we agree! I know a lot of people love her but she's just not my style

[@prufrock1977]

@ most other characters, I try a few times and it clicks. Spider-woman, Bishop, Psylocke, Ghost Spider…I didn’t like, after a couple of different tries. Great! Got it. I can enjoy them so much now. But her and Thor. I can’t. I will try again. But I don’t expect my opinions to change.

[@DMTip]

>>Incoming Wall of Text>> X-23 - I agree with this. I never thought she was S. I think there was just a lot of residual hype around the interaction of Honeybadger and Side-by-Side. Angel - He is one of my favorites. He just feels so good at the table. I love flexible heroes and Angel is where it's at. He's got a little of everything and when you can trigger both Angel of Life and Angel of Death in the same turn, it just feels so good. I don't consider him as strong as Strange, but I play lots of multi-player and his potential and flexibility are just unrivaled. He keeps getting better the more Aerial heroes and events that come out, so I keep going back to him. He's one of my go-to Justice multiplayer picks. He's probably A+ ranking for me, so right on target where you see him, which I think is awesome for the different lenses of solo play vs multiplayer. Ms. Marvel - I see her more as B+ to a solid A. For me, it's not so much about her recursion of events, or the downside of all those supports in Alter-Ego, but more about Embiggen and Shrink. In multi-player these upgrades are just bonkers and combo so well with many newer cards. Shrinking an Even the Odds in a 4p game feels amazing when there are several side schemes out. Even the simple Shrink + Multitasking turns it into a 4 + 4 threat removal for a two effective resources. Shrink with the newer Three Steps Ahead is just bonkers as well if you wanted to build around that. Of course, in solo you don't need so much threat removal typically and she'll come off feeling very weak. SP//dr - I agree with your overall rank. She takes some time to get set up, similar to Iron Man. But I also think she can come swinging out of the gate which Iron Man can't do as easily. She has several copies of All Systems Go to grab her interfaces which get you to the juicy bits and she's got the HP and base stat line to handle board control out of the gate. Cyclops - I'm not sure I ever played him solo, but that makes sense. The way I value Cyclops though is more about his ability to combine X-Men from different aspects with non X-men cards from another aspect. Simple things like Dust with Leadership Skill or Med Team, or Boot Camp with a suite of cheap leadership X-Men that wouldn't be possible otherwise. When he first came out, I never expected so many basic X-Men, so this isn't as strong as it used to be, and he definitely shines more in multi-player. Though, I have seen some decks that focus solely on firing Full Blast as many times as possible through recursion of Phoenix. I will note that there are more opportunities for upgrades to get attached to villains these days as well, especially in multi-player, so it makes Optic Blast a bit better.

[@AncientSlumber]

Great analysis! Seems like we pretty much agree on everything other than Ms. Marvel. I'll be honest, I never tried her in MP, so maybe I'll like her a lot more there, but in solo she just kindda falls short for me. I assume that you mostly play her in Justice?

[@DMTip]

Currently, my most overrated Hero is Spider-Woman. I tend to make a LOT of decks with her because she's so fun to deck build, but I rarely field her at the table...hoping to change that soon. I love her cards and her build possibilities. She's just become more of a mini-game of trying cool card interactions though. Because of that, I think her actual effectiveness is lower at maybe a B-tier, because it's too easy to chase after some neat interactions/combos.

[@PaybackJack]

This is an excellent point. It can be easy to forget how strong a character can be when you're building based on a gimmick. Spider-Woman has a ton of fun stuff she can do but that's not always optimal and then she doesn't feel great when you're sitting around waiting for your combo to happen. Adam Warlock suffers from a similar problem. He's actually fairly strong but people tend to ignore this because they build him around gimmicks (and I say this as a guy who has a deck sitting on marvelCDB that is build around making a Voltron Goldballs deck out of Adam Warlock).

[@VincenzoSolazzi]

Hi! I like to play and win in heroic solo mode. I had played near 2000 expert/heroic solo match with all 55 heroes ( with 15 around 50 match each, the last 10 I like less around 15 match each). I think Angel is B+ and Cyclops is an S tier for heroic solo: x-men allies have incredibly strong sinergy, the strongest of the game, so having access to all aspect x-men is incredibly valuable. Only with Bishop and Spider Ham I had a better heroic win rate than Cyclops ( usually I play heroic solo vs the hardest 5-6 villains with the best 12-15 heroes)

[@AncientSlumber]

Hey! That's very interesting, I can't make Cyclops work at all.. Can you send me the deck that you are using? Do you happen to have any gameplay videos that I can look at? If not, would you be willing to come play while I record a game? Would love to see how Cyclops can deal with Heroic while I can hardly win with him on Expert

[@VincenzoSolazzi]

Sorry, tried 3 times to reply but the very very long msg was not published (I don't know why) . When I'll had time I'll try again

[@VincenzoSolazzi]

The reply was erased for the 4th time. Is possible that it happens 'cause there was the link to MCDB decks?

[@AncientSlumber]

@@VincenzoSolazzi That's very weird, no idea. I don't think links should be an issue

[@cynthiacrescent]

Captain America. His AE ability is just a worse / clunkier version of extra resources / draw most of the time, and his cards lack cohesion. They're strong, of course, and so is his hero ability, but often times he just feels like diet (not weaker) Spider-Man with better basic stats. It's all so bland is my biggest gripe.

[@AncientSlumber]

Interesting take! I actually enjoy playing Captain America, but he's not my favorite for sure. I do agree that he can feel a bit bland sometimes, but something about being able to ready and blocking damage with the shield is just satisfying sometimes

[@DMTip]

I respect your opinion, but I see him differently. I think he's just a solid all around hero. Nothing too flashy, but can be effective in any aspect, even in multiple ways for each aspect. For example, you can go perfect Defense in protection, but because of the shield Retaliate, you could also now do a solid Change of Fortune build. All of his cards don't revolve around the same mechanic or theme link some of the newer heroes, but I think they all thematically fit his character, his powers, and I feel like I'm playing Captain America. What would you change to make his cards be more cohesive? Something about the design, or more about the theme?

[@MCM_Podcast]

It's true. All of these heroes are worse thank Hawkeye. mid-tier at best

[@AncientSlumber]

lol, can't argue with that! love the podcast btw

[@MCM_Podcast]

@ thanks but it pales in comparison to all the awesome KZbinrs now. I just like watching other people’s things :)

[@stephenball2108]

I agree with everyone saying Honey Badger is not essential to X-23 being extremely powerful, and in fact I think constructing your deck to try to maximize Honey Badger will make your decks worse on average. It’ll raise the ceiling a bit but drop the floor out. Just build focusing on X-23 herself, and sometimes you’ll get a nice bonus with HB. Also if you aren’t building towards HB, X-23 has the softest obligation in the entire game. I don’t think Honey Badger is her best card, I think Pain Tolerance is a much stronger card in general for good X-23 decks. I just don’t get thinking X-23 needs time to set up, when she’s probably the hero that is closest to her peak on turn one without putting a single card into play. She is so flexible and can handle basically any problem at any turn. I wouldn’t say she’s definitely an S-tier hero, partially because she doesn’t have access to status effects, but she’s probably the closest to that tier without breaking in. I think a big thing is she has natural resilience against a lot of negative effects encounter cards often throw at you. Status effects on her mean less because she has the action advantage to still get things done through a stun/confuse. Effects that exhaust your hero mean less, effects that force you to discard mean less because her kit is the cheapest in the game, and obviously cards like Assault are easier to mitigate. So I’d say that S-tier can be held for characters that kind of negate the game, while X-23 is probably the best at just going toe to toe with the encounter deck and face tanking her way to victory. Extra bonus points for being great in every aspect, while feeling truly different in each one as well.

[@AncientSlumber]

That's a very good take, can't really say I disagree

[@johnmcgrawrules]

Now that we have the full X-cycle, Cyclops deck-building power doesn't feel as strong as it did at the end of the Mutant Genesis wave. Today we have so many basic X-men and Children of the Atom giving similar strength to other X- heroes. That said, your adjustment of him and the other heroes doesn't make a lot of sense without defining what you are thinking about for different tier levels. From my play experience, Leadership with Cyclops can be built to defeat any scenario on expert difficulty over 95% of the time. Hard for me to agree that he's slipped as much as power creep may have just helped other approach his ceiling.

[@AncientSlumber]

I agree he probably seems weaker now than when he was released. I'm 1 for 6 against Expert VG with Cyclops, while usually I'm over 80% win rate against him with heroes that I consider very strong. I can't see him winning against VG or Ronan 95% of the time, that's Dr. Strange level of strong. Would love to see the deck that you're using for that

[@jonathanpickles2946]

SpiderWoman might be my most overrated in that she often given High A sort of rating but I never feel in control with her. I think it is more that I just don't really enjoy her. A lot of those heroes listed do absolutely crush regular Expert scenarios (as does Miles mentioned elsewhere) so this is probably a difficulty thing. X23 is the one I think is most likely to be over the edge - presumably why she is only number 5. She is really strong & fast in leadership sidekick & the speed helps avoid the obligation & Leadership can mitigate it. The first time I played Cyclops I felt pretty much the same as you. The second time he was way more effective, especially supporting another hero in 2 player. (by each time I mean session of a few games). You failed to point out that the best X men allies are basic anyway further undermining his schtick :) I haven't played Ms M for ages but she was pretty solid back then, again as a flipper given time to set up, which is quite smooth with her 1 cost eco cards. She does need to flip which is a very fun part of the game you seem to be denying yourself. I find Angel & SPDR a bit dull & haven't played them a ton/ SPDR is certainly way better than I would expect a 3 hand size character to be but she can still stall a bit.

[@AncientSlumber]

Thanks for the reply! I actually really like Spider-Woman but I understand why some people don't love her ^^ I should have mentioned that the best X-Men allies are basic, my bad... And I actually do love flipping! It's just that it's not very viable to do on Heroic and hard Expert scenarios more than 1-2 times a game usually.

[@thomasmcintosh1452]

X-23 is my fave hero but I agree she isnt S, A/A+ is the right assessment. S is reserved for the gamebreakers (Cable, Ham, Strange, Bishop). Ghost Spider is overrated I've seen her as high as A, no hero gets shut off more by a drawing exhaustion than her B- or C for me.

[@AncientSlumber]

Ghost Spider is a great call! I agree she's more of a B-C tier for me as well

[@thomasmcintosh1452]

@@AncientSlumber Colossus is another one I have firmly in C who I see creeping into A tiers recently, with people citing how good he is flipping every turn and using Armor Ups. I see the theory and on paper it sounds strong, but the set up is painful, his tough economy still breaks down at some point and the armor up recursion isnt as consistent as Colossus fans would have you believe. His ceiling is high, but my god the floor is so low with Colossus