I think this is becoming a legit question seeing as how things are going with this game. Also why I still dont have a real team after 2 years at this point.
It seems like I can build something solid but then it starts to break down when I face a team thats a really hard counter to one or more of my characters. Then I feel the need to revisit the makeup of my team to make it more well-rounded, only you cant make a FULLY well rounded team because as meidocre as say…Trish might be as a standalone character she gives Wesker for instance, complete hell.
I’ve tried to analyze specific roles of team makeups and I find that I like the rushdown/keepaway/solid anchor makeup because it does cover all bases, only down is if you lose the character you need to deal with the opposite point character, you might find yourself fucked. Filipino Champs Magneto/Dormammu/Doom comes to mind here. Or maybe its just a gamble plain and simple? I’m still warming up to the idea of every match being a what-if scenario. Marvel is evolving into something very weird.
Basically the simplest way to explain Marvel at this point is…pick a cheap team (preferably one where the point and second get a good assist) and kill their point character before they kill yours.
Whoever kills first gains the momentum they need to close up the match barring the opponent landing and XF3 etc. That’s why Chris G is so consistent because his team is so powerful from the front that he can consistently get the first kill and keep momentum going. Where the onus is on the opponent to fight back against stuff that’s hitting them in the front, back and above as they come in. Then another strong character and solid anchor that can possibly land if plan A fails.
Yeah Vergil especially while otherwise OP is balanced by the fact that all he can do is mash on stuff that can get meatied to escape an incoming mix up unless he had DT activated prior to coming in. Having an XF3 anchor is generally not a direct counter to a solid anchor team. It’s your fault if you don’t snap in their anchor or get them into the corner for a strong mix up after killing the first 2.
The only thing that comes close to a hard counter for solid make up teams are those that have Vergil second and Strider 3rd. Or I like to call double anchor teams. Those teams are rough because you can get strong support from those 2 and no matter which you snap, you still have the other as a scary XF3 anchor. Vergil tends to be the most oppressive of the two so overall you still have a better chance snapping and killing Vergil first then just try to get rid of Strider before he lands. There are some shells like Dorm/Doom, Vergil/Doom, and even characters like Viper with meter that can make things rough for Dark Strider even.
Anyway I think my point is being missed. There are lots of hard counters to teams not necessarily “good characters” but characters who still break down “solid” teams in theory. ie: Dormammu/Magneto/Doom is a SOLID team…but now that team is nullified by Hawkeye/Doom so do you fight through it or change to a team that can deal with Hawkeye? Or is it all about killing the character you want to kill.
Sent drones top 3 assists in the game, standalone Sentinel is blitzed by Magneto.
Does the game turn into who kills what character first? Its a game of chess in that respect and thus no such thing as a solid team if you use your anti-character to break down the concept of these created teams.
I wouldn’t really call Dorm/Mag/Doom solid because Dorm isn’t a solid character at the start of the round. He loses for free to Wolverine at the start of round even harder than he does vs. Hawkeye lame out. Which Wolverine isn’t even top tier in theory so that’s pretty bad.
All you have to do to make that team deal with Hawkeye is put Magneto first just like the Evo winning team (or partly winning team along with Mag/Doom/Phoenix). Magneto beats Hawkeye at the start if Hawkeye is on point.
Drones assist loses to flood teams and Zero+beam teams. Drones assist will soon be difficult to use in the meta unless you also have jam session or a beam. Which even then against the best teams you still won’t get it out much. Drones is definitely not top 3 anymore.
There are a lot of solid teams, it’s just the fast paced, high damage nature of the game forces you to play pristine spacing games to keep consistent even if a team matchup is in your favor.
There’s a lot of em. I was gonna make a list of end game teams for the top tier point characters, but say for Magneto…Magneto/Doom/Ammy, Magneto/Morri/Doom and Magneto/Dorm/Doom are all solid teams for Mag that cover a lot of matchups. Magneto/Doom/Vergil I wouldn’t consider as solid, but it can blow your team up if you don’t work at dealing with Vergil anchor after you land a hit on Magneto or Doom.
Basically only scrubs run away and think of counterpicking as their first option at the sight of a “bad” matchup. And people’s sense of what counts as a bad matchup is usually twisted, Trish for example can give Wesker players hell but she is not a bad matchup for Wesker, the damage + health advantage is heavily in Wesker’s favor and if played correctly it’s hard for Trish players to keep Wesker away from her for long.
And Mag/Dorm/Doom is not a solid team, that’s why F Champ doesn’t use that team very often. That team besides losing to characters like Hawkeye struggles hard to regain momentum when Magneto fails to get the first hit. The entire team is built around Magneto building meter to start Dorm’s oppressing zoning game, that plan falls apart when Magneto goes down early as Dorm with missiles and without meter isn’t very strong. Mag/Doom/Phoenix is significantly more solid because Doom is stronger than Dorm on incoming and can turn the tides easily with 1 successfully footdive. Basically a solid team needs to have 2 things: you need to be able to gain a near insurmountable advantage just from getting the 1st hit, and you need to have some chance of a fightback and a strong plan even if you lose your point character first early. Most of the teams you see that get top 8 in majors have those 2 characteristics. Having a zoning character in the middle is already a highly questionable decision as when you are behind by 1 character you seldom have the luxury to play patiently.
Dorm has a lot of anti projectile tools that people don’t give him enough credit for and all it takes is one swipe into Doom TAC infinite and the match is heavily in Dorm’s favor.
Counterpicking itself is not a bad thing and there’s nothing wrong counterpicking now and then. Counterpicking everytime and running away from all bad matchups on the other hand is the sign of a scrub. Bad matchups are unavoidable in all fighting games and having the ability to win a bad matchup, even better to think of how to turn a bad matchup into a good one, is mandatory for any respectable fighting game player. I am trying to answer the TC in whether or not team composition is about counterpicking, it’s pointless to look at teams that way because any team in this game is guaranteed to have a bad matchups. You should be asking first about how you can turn those bad matchups into good ones before thinking about changing your team in a pointless search for the perfect team.
Respectability as a player has NOTHING to do with how much you man up against a bad matchup. Sure, maybe it’s better to ride it out and see what you can do and then change if necessary, but immeadiately searching for alternative solutions is scrubby? Seriously? I don’t think you even know what “scrubby” means.
To me “scrubby” is any mentality that limits your ability to learn fighting games and improve. I am going by the original definition of a scrub as someone who scrubs buttons in arcades and is not interested in actually learning how to play fighting games. And immediately searching for alternative solutions is scrubby to me because if you don’t man up against a bad matchup you are just not going to improve as a player.
If it wins it isn’t scrubby. If the game allows you to pick easy characters and do better with them than your difficult to play main, then you taking advantage of that isn’t scrubby, it’s smart. You could call the game bad for allowing you to do that, but not the player for taking advantage of it.