Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Saturday, September 14, 2019.
Schedule Notes: AW attack begins around 2pm EST.
Kabam has released an iOS only update to address a homebar issue with the iPhone X.
RichTheMan is the latest Content Creator to receive a Spotlight on the forum. Also, congratulations to Rich, who recently announced his engagement! Make sure to drop by his Youtube Channel and wish him well.
Struggling with the Time Paradox Quests? MCOCDroidDoes has a walkthru with a spreadsheet that will help you hit those milestones.
Katy Candy continues the discussion on the Cull Obsidian balancing and offers suggestions to Kabam on how to improve communication with the player base.
Seatin showcases his new 5/65 Warlock in Alliance Wars.
Lagacy is also bringing a new champ into Alliance Wars, taking Claire Voyant down the Spite lane.
This week we’ve got several exciting events to look forward to including the return of Dungeons, the Beta Test for AQ Modifiers, Week 8 of the Summoner Showdown, and the Content Creator Boss Rush Challenge.
Full Roster Availability (No AW/AQ): 100% Champion availability following the conclusion of Alliance Quest and Alliance War on Tuesday, September 17 until AW attack resumes on Thursday, September 19.
Sunday, September 15:UMCOC Podcast, Live On Discord, 8pm EST.
Monday, September 16: Round 2 of the Nick Fury and Era Featured Arenas at 1pm EST. Dungeons return at 1pm EST.EDIT: Dungeons will now return September 23. Summoner Sigil owners, your Gold Quest and Solo Quest reset at 1pm EST. The Beta Test for AQ Modifiers opens at 1pm EST. The Alpha Arena starts at 6pm EST.
Tuesday, September 17: 100% Champion availability following the conclusion of the AQ series and Alliance War attack. Server Maintenance at 11pm EST, estimated to last up to 2 hours.
Wednesday, September 18: Week 8 of the Summoner Showdown with Brutal DLX, Yeet, and Turbo Tim, featuring special guest host Dave at 4pm EST. Chapter 4 of Time After Time and the Content Creator Boss Rush will be released at 1pm EST. 100% Champion availability all day!
Thursday, September 19: Round 1 of the 4* Captain America Infinity War and Aarkus Featured Arenas at 1pm EST. 100% Champion availability until AW attack resumes around 2pm EST. Tier 4 Basic Arena begins at 6pm EST.
Friday, September 20: AQ series begins at 3pm EST. Beta Test for AQ Modifiers ends.
Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Thursday, September 12, 2019.
Schedule Notes: Round 1 of the 4* Nick Fury and Era Featured arenas at 1pm EST. Alliance Quest begins at 3pm EST. 100% Champion availability until AW attack (the first of Season 12) resumes around 2pm EST.
Boss Rush Drops Sept 18
Kabam announced balancing for Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian. Maw will be improved as an attacker, while Cull will see his damaged reduced. You can track the status of all Champion Balancing here.
Congrats to Ms. Insomnia, who won Week 7 of the Summoner Showdown to earn a spot in the NYCC Tournament.
Not surprisingly, the Cull Obsidian champion balancing was the talk of the community yesterday. Seatin weighted in with his thoughts on what would be a fair adjustment.
Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Wednesday, September 11, 2019.
Schedule Notes: Week 7 of the Summoner Showdown with Stat bot, Ms.Insomnia and Ex Machina with guest host Dragonfei from the UMCOC Podcast at 4pm EST. Chapter 3 of Time After Time will be released at 1pm EST. 1st matchmaking for Season 12 of Alliance War at 6pm EST. 100% Champion availability all day!
Yesterday was a very busy news day with several announcements on the forums. Here’s the recap:
It was confirmed that AW Season 12 will start today. Also, Ronin will not be changed via character balancing, but we’ve been told to stay tuned for an announcement on Ebony Maw. Finally, it was announced that the Era Arena will not be a separate arena, but a slightly different format for this week’s Featured Arenas. The pool will consist of 6 champions – Doctor Octopus, Dormammu, The Thing, Winter Solider, Sentinel and Thor – and each Summoner that qualifies for the ranked rewards will get to choose the champion they would like (there is no community vote as some were speculating).
Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Tuesday, September 10, 2019.
Schedule Notes: Tier 4 Basic arena at 6pm EST. 100% Champion availability following the conclusion of AW attack for the next 48 hours!
Curious about the contestants in Week 7 of the Summoner Showdown? Kabam has an official forum post with bios and this week’s duel targets.
The Aarkus reviews continue to come in. Most of the reviews seem pretty “Meh” at this point, but he does have some uses, particularly when it comes to shutting down robots. Hear what Lagacy and Killer Beezy have to say.
The demon Mephisto may be one of the more underrated champions in the contest. He entered the Battlerealm the same month as Blade and was understandably overshadowed, but has proven his worth time and again, particularly against buffed up Uncollected EQ bosses. His kit boasts a host of utility, and although not known as a heavy-hitter, with the right synergies in place he can do some serious damage.
Key Information: Mephisto is a complicated champion, who requires a specific play-style and synergies for maximum value.
Mephisto’s most important bit of utility is his Soul Imprisonment, which prevents the opponent from generating buffs for the first 15 seconds of the fight. This effectively shuts down buff heavy champs, particularly Cosmics. This effect can be refreshed by landing the SP1 and consuming one of Mephisto’s persistent charges.
Mephisto starts the quest with 3 persistent charges (souls). He earns one soul every time he KOs an opponent, and earns a soul at the start of each from the Morningstar synergy. Mephisto can carry over a maximum of 6 souls from fight-to-fight.
Mephisto’s Soul Charges have three uses. They can be used to soul imprison the opponent via the SP1. If Mephisto falls below 30% health, the Soul Charges are consumed and heal Mephisto. With 6 charges you’ll return to almost full health. Consuming the charges in this way makes Mephisto temporarily invulnerable, so he can effectively cheat death once a fight as long as he has a charge. The third use comes into play with The Champion synergy, which raises Mephisto’s attack 15% per soul (effectively turning Mephisto into a multi-fight ramp-up champion), which is a huge increase in his offensive output.
Signature Ability: When taking a hit, Mephisto has a chance to activate his Aura of Incineration which causes passive incineration damage to a nearby opponent, as well as power gain for Mephisto. As the Aura can be activated by taking blocked hits, and has a bonus chance to activate on a parry, this signature ability is useful in offensive situations, and necessary for placement on alliance war defense.
Team Building/Key Synergies: Mephisto is a synergy dependent champion. While he is a good addition to the Blade Trinity, he really shines when the team is built around him. For three champion teams (AW/AQ/Dungeons) bring Mephisto, The Champion (+15% attack per soul) and Morningstar (+1 soul at the start of each fight) for the ideal combination of sustainability and damage.
On a five champion team, add in Ghost-Rider or Dr. Strange for +70% incinerate energy damage, and Symbiote Supreme for a 15% chance to trigger Aura of Incineration with a basic attack.
If any of those are unavailable on your roster, Mephisto has a crit synergy with Sunspot, gains 15% Aura of Incineration damage with Omega Red, lowers opponents energy resistance by 30% with Blade, and regains the first soul spent in a fight triggering soul imprisonment with Hela.
Mastery Setup: Because Mephisto is poison immune and has a built-in healing mechanic, Mephisto is a relatively suicide friendly champion, but they aren’t required either. If you are running suicides, you do have to be careful about matchups that require you to spam the SP1 to soul imprison the defender, because you’re giving up your healing reserve.
I run Mephisto with only 1 point in Mystic Dispersion. Any more and he tends to overshoot the SP2 and max out on power, which is not generally something you want. With the Aura of Incineration up Mephisto gains a lot of power anyways, so you don’t really need the help.
Alliance War Defense: Mephisto can be a good defender, but he does need to be duped so he gets his Aura of Incineration. Void and Blade are going to be the main attackers used against Mephisto, so you want to put Mephisto on a node that doesn’t allow Void to reserve healing if possible.
Special Attacks: Mephisto’s SP1 will consume a soul charge and prevent the opponent from gaining any active buffs for 15 seconds. As Mephisto’s souls are very valuable to the character, the SP1 should only be used in specific circumstances. Common opponents to soul imprison are Medusa, The Champion, Annihilus, and Hyperion. If you’re at zero souls, fire away. The SP1 can stack up to three incineration debuffs on the opponent.
The SP2 is Mephisto’s bread-and-butter special attack. It will activate his Aura of Incineration to cause passive incineration damage and power gain. You can stack multiple Auras.
The SP3 should only be used once per fight, and only when the opponent is above 2 bars of power. Launching the SP3 under these conditions will power drain the opponent and activate Mephisto’s Aura of Incineration. The SP3 is a great one-time “get out of jail free card” versus pesky power gain champions like Mordo and Hyperion.
Pros: Mephisto is Poison, Incinerate, Coldsnap and Frostbite Immune.
Soul Charges make Mephisto an incredibly safe and sustainable character to play.
Mephisto can tank a SP3 without dying as long as he has 1 Soul Charge.
Soul Imprisonment allows you to instantly shut down opponent’s buffs at the start of the fight.
Power Drain on the SP3 provides a once-a-fight safety net against power gain.
Mephisto’s Aura of Incineration is passive, and he doesn’t rely on putting debuffs on opponents to do damage, so debuff immune fights don’t really hinder his damage.
In situations where you have to take a lot of blocked hits, like stun immune fights, Mephisto’s Aura will do a lot of the work for you.
Mephisto has synergies with some of the best champions in the game.
Cons: Mephisto is hard countered by Blade, Void, Human Torch and Bishop.
Requires a full synergy team to reach maximum potential.
Not a big-hitter, so fight times will be longer, and time-outs are a worry versus AW bosses like The Champion.
Mephisto is forced to trade raw damage for Soul Imprisonment in important fights, so your damage decreases the longer the fight lasts. Furthermore, he needs several fights to ramp back up after a fight that requires expending souls. So if you get into a situation where you have back-to-back fights that require spamming the SP1 (say a Medusa mini into a Champion boss) you won’t be at 100% ramp-up for the second fight.
Soul Imprisonment does not prevent Magik’s Limbo.
Soul Imprisonment only prevents buffs from triggering, it does not nullify any currently active buffs.
Pro Tips: Because Mephisto prevents buffs from triggering at the start of the fight, you can immediately parry champions like Iceman and Juggernaut.
For a tough AW fight that requires use of the SP1, I like to pop a power start boost. Race the defender to a SP3, trigger your Aura, then start spamming the SP1. You should be able to do this in about 20 seconds so here isn’t much of a gap between soul imprisonments.
If the opponent blocks the SP1, you will not expend a Soul. The attack has to land to consume a Soul and Soul Imprison the opponent.
Hela can not trigger her “cheat death” buff when at 1 HP while Soul Imprisoned.
Because Mephisto is cold and incinerate immune, he is an excellent counter to Freezeburn nodes, Iceman, and Aarkus.
If you are new to the game, you may have heard phrases like “ramp-up champion” or “ramp-up the damage” and not know what that refers to. Simply put, a ramp-up champion is a champion that has a mechanic the player can utilize to increase damage output. This is in contrast to champions which have a relatively consistent damage output, such as Blade or Vision, or champions like Void or Iceman that inflict a lot of debuffs on the opponent.
With the introduction of persistent charges in the Fall of 2017 with Morningstar and Mephisto, Kabam added additional depth to the Contest by creating champs that could grow more powerful over the course of a quest. Some of these multi-fight ramp-up champions are among the most powerful in the game, but they require knowledge of how to properly utilize their mechanics to unlock their full potential.
Below is a list of the multi-fight ramp-up champions in Marvel Contest of Champions, with basic information on how their ramp-up mechanic works. This is just an overview, and you should consult the Champion Description for full information, as many of these Champions have very complicated or specific play-styles.
Champion: Aegon Mechanic: Persistent Combo Ramp-Up Action: Achieve High Combo, Carry Over % of Combo to Next Fight Benefits: Multiple Attack Bonuses as Combo Scales, Including Crit Rate, Crit Through Block, and many others. Notes: Requires Awakened Ability, High Signature Level is Extremely Beneficial
Champion: Bishop Mechanic: Carry Over Power From Fight-To Fight Ramp-Up Action: End Fight with Power Benefits: Unblockable Specials, Incineration on SP attacks Notes: Requires Dupe, Abilities Depend on Power Level at Start of Fight
Champion: Captain Marvel (Movie) Mechanic: Energy Charges (25) Ramp-Up Action: Parry, Block Energy Attacks, SP1 Benefits: Binary Ignition Grants Fury Buff, Armor Break, Increased Energy Damage, Indestructible Buff when Duped Notes:
Champion: Corvus Glaive Mechanic: Missions (4) Ramp-Up Action: KO Mutant/Tech/Avenger, Knockdown Auto-Block/Evade Champion After Ability Triggers Benefits: Increased Crit Damage Notes: Proxima Midnight Synergy for True Strike
Champion: Ebony Maw Mechanic: Persistent Charge (6) Ramp-Up Action: Complete 3 Missions in a Fight Benefits: Inflict Degen Passive Per Charge at Start of Fight Notes:
Champion: Heimdall Mechanic: Persistent Charge Ramp-Up Action: End Fight With Buffs Active Benefits: Convert Buffs to Power Gain at Start of Next Fight Notes: Requires Awakened Ability
Champion: Mephisto Mechanic: Soul Charge (6) Ramp-Up Action: KO Opponent Benefits: 15% Increased Damage Per Charge Notes: Requires The Champion Synergy, Morningstar Synergy Grants +1 Soul at Start of Fight
Champion: Morningstar Mechanic: Captured Souls (5) Ramp-Up Action: Launch Sp3, Reach 100 on Counter Benefits: Bonus Energy Damage on Sp1, Unblockable Sp2, Life Steal Notes: Different Benefit Activates Per Soul Captured, Guillotine Synergy Grants +1 Soul at Start of Quest
Champion: Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) Mechanic: Persistent Charge (5) Ramp-Up Action: End fights with debuffs active on the opponent Benefits: Spend Persistent Charges to activate pre-fight abilities which put additional debuffs on the opponent. Notes: Mr. Fantastic’s pre-fight abilities can be utilized for other team members through his cross-fight mechanic.
Champion: Mr. Sinister Mechanic: Engineered Perfection (3 per class, 10 Total) Ramp-Up Action: KO Different Classes Benefits: Increased SP Attack, Crit, Attack Rating, Power Gain Notes: Requires Awakened Ability
Champion: Sabretooth Mechanic: Persistent Charge Ramp-Up Action: If ST Starts Fight with 0 PC, Randomly Gains 3-6 Charges Benefits: Consumes 1 PC to Reactivate all Furies from the End of the Last Fight as Passive Furies Notes:
Champion: Sentry Mechanic: Reality Warp Ramp-Up Action: Gain 1 at Start of Fight & Every 40 Hits in a Combo Benefits: Reality Warps are a Multiplier for Sentry’s Abilities Notes: Gain .3 seconds of Indestructible per RW when Losing Combo when Duped
Champion: The Champion Mechanic: Persistent Charge (5) Ramp-Up Action: Gains 1 PC every 13 seconds Benefits: Multiple Bonus including Regen, Crit Rate, Fury, Armor Break Gains Notes: Gains Charges 28% Faster vs Greatest Fighters, Abilities vary Depending on Attack Used and Charge levels
Champion: Venom The Duck Mechanic: RNA Bank (10) Ramp-Up Action: Store Up To 3 Buffs per Fight in RNA Bank via Heavy/SP Benefits: Starts Fights with all Buffs in RNA Bank Active Notes: Each Non-Unique Buff Beyond the First Suffers a Stacking 10% Potency Penalty (Example 1st Power Gain is 100%, 2nd Power Gain is 90%, and so on)
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