Welcome back to MSF Mondays! Each week we break down one more aspect of the hottest mobile game, Marvel Strike Force!
My favorite mode in Marvel Strike Force is Alliance War! It’s the mode that requires you to pay attention and not just hit that auto button. Unless, of course, you’re just putting up Yondu against a room filled with bots. Then, Auto away!
With this past major update, Alliance War has undergone some major changes that are worth unpacking in their own post. Some of our basic tips and tricks from our original Marvel Strike Force Alliance War post are still applicable, and we don’t want to repeat ourselves for the info that still stands. We’ll just be focusing on the changes to Alliance War and what they mean for YOU!
MSF: Changes to Alliance War
The main change to Alliance War in Marvel Strike Force is that each room has been expanded to 10 slots instead of 8. This means that it will take a minimum of 25% more attacks to full-clear the room and claim the room bonus for your Alliance.
As a result, the score threshold of what constitutes a typical ‘winning’ score is a bit different. Prior to the update, 900-1000 points was a really good threshold to aim for. Hitting that would give your Alliance a decent shot at winning.
Post-update, however, 800-900 could easily be enough for your Alliance to pull off a victory. Why is that? There are more slots so people should be getting more points overall, right?
Well, a lot of alliances are experiencing some player drop, meaning that they have fewer members. Fewer members means fewer attacks to go around, so you need to be very conscientious about your attack targets to make sure rogue attacks aren’t wasted. But really, needing to clear 20 slots means it’s more difficult to get those room bonuses from a full clear. Fewer bonus points equates to fewer total points.
This update gave us the ‘War Ready‘ trait. Any character with T1 Level 4 Iso-8 or higher gets the War Ready trait, which applies to the new room bonuses that I’ll detail below. Basically, you’ll want to make sure that your defense teams have Level 4 Iso-8 to get the most benefit and provide your Alliance with the best shot at locking down a room.
We also have the following changes to Rooms:
- Cargo Bay: No longer grants random positive effect and now grants +20% to “War Ready” trait Defense characters for all primary stats (Damage, Health, Armor, Focus, Resist).
- Bridge: The Cargo Bay’s old ability is now on the Bridge – applying 10 random positive effects to defenders.
- Hangar: +10% to all primary stats to Offense characters with the ‘War Ready’ trait.
Additionally, you can now see 4 teams per player when you’re looking at an enemy room. This reveals more of their defenses and allows you to better plan out your attacks starting out. We went from seeing 25% of a player’s teams to seeing 40%, which is a substantial benefit for attackers.
There are a few minor changes like raising the War Energy cap to 10, allowing players to boost Defense on 5 rooms instead of 4, and changes to the cost for Defense Boosts.
Lastly, Alliance officers can mark rooms as ‘Do Not Attack’ by tapping the target icon on a room twice. This won’t prevent alliance members from attacking the room, but it’s a sign to say HEY, WE HAVE OTHER TARGETS. Hopefully your Alliance pays heed to the symbol! It’s a nice quality-of-life adjustment to give a better overall picture of the attack strategy.
MSF: Alliance War Strategy Changes
Now that we know what’s different in the Marvel Strike Force Alliance War, what does that mean for our strategy?
First of all, the Bridge is tougher to take down to claim that 200 point bonus. Giving random positive effects to defenders helps improve the longevity of the room. Couple that with some defense boosts, 4 more total slots, and the juggernaut of defense (Heroes for Hire), and you’re left with a tough nut to crack.
This is another reason why alliances might not score as many points in Alliance War. This is especially true if the Bridge is next to your adjacency rooms like Security or Engineering. You can’t just immediately jump onto the Bridge when you see it – plan ahead and see what’s around to make sure you have the firepower to take it down completely.
Second strategy change is that your rosters need to run deeper. Two more teams on defense means two fewer teams available to you on offense. Players with a well-rounded roster are going to fare better in the new Alliance War format. If you want to give a fair shake for that WAR MVP status, power up those war-specific teams like Sinister Six, Shadowlands, Power Armor, X-Force, and Heroes for Hire, among others.
Keep in mind that you’re probably taking 10-14 attacks per war, but all of your teams don’t have to be packed to the gills. Being able to take out a wide range of opponents is the key; have some teams for 300K+ opponents, 200K opponents, and 100K opponents. Nothing is worse than everyone sitting around waiting to take out those smaller, 100K teams. You don’t need to use your best teams on those rooms unless that’s where your best team’s power lies.
My third strategy tip is that you should get an idea of what defensive teams your offensive teams are good against. Understanding what a team’s weakness is very important when determining which team to attack. This also means understanding the linchpin members of opposing teams so you know what order to target the toons when attacking. Here are a few examples:
- When facing Brotherhood squads, Magneto‘s blind can set your team back an entire turn while they deal with the condition. The best counter for this is to apply an Ability Block to Magneto or Immunity to your team to give your squad the extra round to burst him down.
- X-Force is really good in War, not just because of their bonuses, but because they attack multiple members at once. This makes clearing Deflect easier, as well as clearing effects like Defense Up using Negasonic‘s Ultimate (which is ready on turn one).
- When facing Heroes for Hire, Luke Cage‘s Taunt is going to come into play after turn 1. You can try to focus your attacks on him early on if you don’t have a way to block his ability or stop his Taunt, instead of bringing another member halfway down just to be forced to switch targets to Cage.
- Symbiotes are a great counter to teams that summon weaker toons, because you get Speed Up whenever you take down an enemy. This is why they obliterate Asgardians, because of Hela’s Greg summons. However, you need to target the Gregs first to built up that Speed before switching gears to focus on Loki. Loki’s passive ability to grant Stealth can derail Symbiotes if he and Hela are the only ones left aside from a wall of Hela summons. Your Speed Up becomes an issue in that case, because the Stealth will take forever to clear since you’re so much faster than Hela.
- Bring in Baron Zemo against Minion squads for that extra damage. X-Factor is good against Marauders because you have a higher chance that Mr. Sinister is going to clone a Multiple Man clone, which is a waste. Take out Beast and Jubilee against Astonishing X-Men because they add so much sustainability to the team.
Once you get a feel for the interactions between teams, you know which teams are usable and which ones should wait for specific match-ups. Save those Infinity Watch teams for the opposing Heroes for Hire defenses…you’re going to need them. And the best part is, you can now practice against defenses outside of active War times, so that you can perfect your match-ups and learn the ropes.
Marvel Strike Force Alliance War is all about resource management, coordination, and timing. With experience, you’ll be a perennial War MVP!
Well I hope this helps you take your Squad from a D+ to a B- Commander!
Previous Installments
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