Viscant's UMvC3 Team Tier List, Parts 1, 2, 3, and the 2014 Update
Presented without editing, save for trimming the header and footer, and adding sections.
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Part 1
In response to the many MMCafe individual tier lists produced by members of the community, Seth Killian challenged people to do something more practical and tier the game by teams. After all, Marvel 3 is a team game and the rank of any individual character is both hard to pin down and somewhat meaningless by itself. What if this character has his best assist? OK, well what if he doesn’t? What if it’s a character like Trish who beats some top tier characters and loses to some bottom tier characters? What the heck do you do with a character like Frank who has a good assist and is a great character with level 5 but is a pretty weak character before leveling up? So making the decision to tier by teams will make everything clearer and easier to understand right? Wrong! I expect this to cause just as much grief and salt as any individual list. Probably more. This cannot possibly be accurate. There are 117,600 possible team combinations out there not counting assists. Counting assists there are 3,175,200 combinations. Your favorite team will probably not make the list.
In fact (and here’s the REAL problem), not only will your favorite team almost surely not be on the list, almost nobody’s favorite team will make it! Unlike MvC2 there aren’t very many common actual teams in this game yet. Due to the game’s diversity and relative balance (Marvel is like West Virginia, everything’s relative) very few 3 character team combinations repeat in top level play. Duos repeat and are quite common but actual teams? We’re not quite there yet. I don’t think we ever will get there.
So why do this at all? Well it’s fun. Second off, I’m sitting in an airport on my way to Chicago for UFGT8 and there’s an evil redheaded woman staring at me like I’m a lamb chop. If I pretend this is really important hopefully she’ll leave me alone. But the most important reason is because I want your feedback. Is there a particular team combination that you think needs to be highlighted because it’s that damn good? Tell me about it! Am I completely wrong and overrating theory in favor of results? Tell me about it! Am I a fraud who nobody should listen to? Keep that to yourself--I’ve already heard that one!
And with that out of the way, here…we…go! We'll start with the Top 3 teams; These team groupings seem to be above the rest in theory and in practice and most importantly they force bad matchups with many other top teams. Like in a solo tier list being strong in space in a vacuum is good but being strong against other likely tournament teams is more important.
Zero, what was he buffed for?
Zero-any/Dante-a/Vergil-y, Zero-any/Vergil-y/Hawkeye-a, Zero-any/Vergil-y/Doom-b, Zero-any/Vergil-y/Akuma-b Players to watch:
Mihe: Zero/Dante/Vergil Flocker: Zero/Hawkeye/Vergil or Zero/Vergil/Hawkeye
So let’s get started with something that will probably make everyone good and mad, the optimal Zero team as the #1 team in the game. A lot of people are going to complain since this team hasn’t done a lot of winning but people need to be patient; I don’t think there’s anyone out there who’s mastered this team from top to bottom yet meaning this team still needs to grow into its theoretical potential.
I think the best form of this team is team Zero may cry (or more appropriately, Zero will make you cry), Zero/Dante-A/Vergil-Y. The premise of this team is simple. Zero is a dominant point character. Vergil is a dominant anchor. Zero can kill off of stray hits in a meter efficient manner with the lightning loop meaning you can generate 1 hit kills while still building meter and Vergil with meter at the end of a game with XF3 is a monster who dominates other common and strong anchors like Phoenix, Wesker and Morrigan. The reason Dante is the preferred assist is that jam session works so well with both Vergil and Zero both for combos and mixups. Plus Dante and Vergil have excellent synergy together meaning that even if Zero is killed instantly this team can still do serious damage.
Other forms of the team are top notch as well with Doom-missiles working well with both Zero and Vergil for combos and lockdown potential and Akuma-tatsu providing for very difficult to read resets and Hawkeye arrows allow Zero to teleport in freely and set up some easy pressure without burning the buster. Still, Dante-a gets the nod from me. In my eyes, this is the most powerful team in the game; now it’s up to players of this team to prove me right. Stop dropping combos guys, make me look good!
MorriDoom: Make way for the bad (girl)
Any/Morrigan-y/Doom-b, Morrigan-y/Doom-b/Any or X/Doom-b/Morrigan-y Players to watch:
FC | Chris G: Akuma/Doom/Morrigan, Morrigan/Doom/Akuma
I have a sneaking suspicion that we have found the villain of UMvC3. Instead of a pure and beautiful maiden like Phoenix, it’s an evil impure succubus named Morrigan. Judging by crowd reactions, she’s already the most hated character and she hasn’t even been maximized yet. The best form of this team may very well be Zero/Morrigan/Doom and it’s yet to make an appearance in tournament.
Getting the most out of MorriDoom is really up to the player. Starting Morrigan means you only start with one meter meaning you probably shouldn’t go into astral vision mode immediately, plus you’ll have to fend off an opening mixup. But when you start with 1 meter, the other side is starting with just 1 meter also—this makes it much harder for the other side to nuke Doom. Using a battery is guaranteed to keep your Morrigan safe at the start of the round and will give you more meter to play with especially if you use harmonizer assist liberally. But this leaves your Morrigan vulnerable to snapback mixups; as good as she is she doesn’t have the best evasion tools after being snapped in and nobody blocks Zero’s welcome mixups reliably. And while you’re building meter for your Morrigan, they’re building meter for a counter as well and they’re almost certainly targeting Doom. Morrigan is a great character on her own but with Doom she becomes a different and suffocating force; if the opponent takes out Doom this team is still good but it’s just not the same.
So while it may not be the best team in the game and while there may be some flaws to attack, there’s a very good chance it’s the most important especially right now earning it the coveted 2nd spot in my list. So many characters including a lot of very good characters and teams get shut down so completely that having a counter to this team may become a requirement to compete seriously. With the monkey-see monkey-do mentality that so many players have, this team is likely coming to a scene near you. Be prepared.
Viper, not quite the apex predator (but awfully close)
Viper-b/Dante-a/Strider-y. Viper-any/Doom-a or b/Amaterasu-b, Viper-any/Doom-b/Strider-y Players to watch:
AG | Marlinpie: Viper/Doom/Amaterasu
Viper is the least picked top tier character in any Marvel game since the beginning of the series and likely one of the least picked in any fighting game. Players almost universally agree that she’s incredibly strong but very few people have any actual experience with the character. While compiling this list I had to ask Viper players for help about what her best teams are (thanks to Chrisis) simply because aside from Marlinpie you just don’t see much of her. Her execution barrier is the reason for her underuse; only an actual master Viper scares anyone. Since her normals are so weak you need to take advantage of good assists and be spot on with her seismo pressure in order to mount any kind of serious threat. The proper Viper teams can not only beat the best teams in the game but they can prevent the other teams from even getting to play. Poorly constructed Viper teams simply aren’t very good at all.
Strider’s vajra assist and Dante’s jam session are key to making a great Viper team. Viper is one of the best characters at protecting Strider since she can ignore beams and projectiles and vajra gives her 2/3 screen pressure that she can convert into 1 million damage combos. Jam session and cold star give her near inescapable incoming mixups including potential unblockables. Luckily these characters work well as duos after Viper dies so the overall teams are strong. So while the top Viper teams may be less flexible than other top teams their sheer muscle power makes up for it. It’s up to the players to decide if mastering multiple high execution characters is worth it to them. As Marlinpie has proved to everyone the brass ring of a major tournament win is there, it’s up to other people to grab it and run with it like he has.
Part 2
Today we're going to talk about the 2nd group of teams, which have separated themselves from the pack and are making big time showings but don’t seem to quite be on the level of the top teams.
Swords and stuff
Vergil-y/Wesker-b/Strider-y. Wesker-b/Dante-any/Vergil-y, Wesker-b/Magneto-a/Vergil-y, Doom-b/Strider-y/Amaterasu-b, Magneto-a/Strider-y/Sentinel-a, Vergil-y/Dante-any/Strider-y, Wesker-b/Dante-y/Strider-y, Doom-b/Sentinel-a/Strider-y, Vergil-y/Doom-a or b/Strider-y, Vergil-y/Dante-any/Magneto-a
Players to watch: Padtrick and Zeus: Vergil/Wesker/Strider BT | Clockw0rk: Doom/Strider/Amaterasu Chou and OMGItsAndre: Wesker/Magneto/Vergil
This group of teams that top the 2nd grouping is dominated by Strider and Vergil proving once again that if you want to pick a winning character in a Capcom fighting game, pick a character with red hair or a sword. It makes you wonder whose Cheerios Hayato pissed in to buck the trend in MvC2, doesn’t it? While the grouping of teams in this list are roughly equal to each other I want to make special note of the Vergil/Strider shell and go over a few things since it’s very underused and deserves more of a look in serious competition.
Strider assist was one of the early flavors of the month but it fell out of favor once people learned how to deal with it. Or so they thought. It’s a good assist with most all characters but when you add a point character that can protect it and convert off of it from multiple positions you have a dominant force and Vergil can do both. Many players who gave Strider an early look and abandoned him may want to have another look; the best Vergil/Strider teams are closer to the top 3 team groupings than anything else in the 2nd tier.
The Vergil anchor team construction is another team construction that warrants another look. When early Japanese tournament results were coming in many people seemed confused by how often Vergil appeared as an anchor. Early American wisdom was that Vergil was best suited as a point or second character so that he could have more assist usage. It turns out—at least for right now—that Vergil is a dangerous character in all positions. The tactics may change depending on what slot he fits into but he can dominate in all of them. Early on many people laughed and thought that Japan would be free since their main anchor wasn’t as good as America’s main anchor (Wesker). Well, who’s laughing now? They were right and we were wrong.
What can Sentinel do for you?
Magneto-a/x/Sentinel-a. Doom-b/x/Sentinel-a. x/Doom-b/Sentinel-a. Doom-b/Sentinel-a/x, Magneto-a/Dormammu-a/Sentinel-a
Players to watch: Fanatiq: Magneto/Storm/Sentinel Dios-X: Doom/Storm/Sentinel Joker: Magneto/Iron Man/Sentinel Rayray: Magneto/Ryu/Sentinel
Let’s get this out of the way quickly. Sentinel as a point character is among the weakest in the game. As has been pointed out by many different people, when Sentinel drops into the action and has to fight on his own, how often do you hear the commentator say “oh this is a great match for Sentinel!” It debatable whether there even are any great matches for Sentinel, much less among the common tournament characters.
So why does he still show up on a wide variety of teams? The Magneto/Sentinel shell and Doom/Sentinel shells are among the most resilient in the game. Both are well suited for both offense and defense and can be molded to almost everyone’s individual playstyle. I’ve long advocated to someone who wants to actually get into Marvel that they start with a Doom/Sentinel team simply because mastering this shell will make you better at Marvel.
This is a prime example of how the best teams are more than the sum of their parts. As we’ve seen by the many individual tier lists, many people think Doom as an individual character is not top 10 and Sentinel as an individual character is bottom 10. But when combined together they can shut down top tier teams simply due to their synergy.
She can’t control your salt
Magneto-a/Doom-b/Phoenix-a or b. Zero-any/Doom-b/Phoenix-a. Wesker-b/Haggar-a/Phoenix-b, Wesker-b/Magneto-a/Phoenix-b
Players to watch: Flocker: Zero/Doom/Phoenix Tokido and Filipino Champ: Magneto/Doom/Phoenix BT | Viscant: Wesker/Haggar/Phoenix and Wesker/Doom/Phoenix
The demise of Phoenix has been greatly overstated. Her teams still rank among some of the best in the game just it appears she’s fallen further than she actually has given that Zero/assist/Phoenix and Wesker/assist/Phoenix were probably the absolute best teams in vanilla Marvel and definitely the best ones tournament wise by the time Ultimate supplanted vanilla as a tournament game. Meter building changes and overall system changes have changed the way Phoenix teams need to be constructed. Due to how fast meter built in vanilla you could get away with having two meat shields in front of her and rely on her to win the game by herself. This can still happen but is much less of an expected outcome in ultimate.
The meter change gives Zero and Magneto teams an advantage over Wesker teams since they can build more meter in 1 hit and force the opponent to make difficult decisions about when to snap back and when to kill the point character. Also more thought has to go into the 2nd character on a Phoenix team now than in vanilla. In vanilla the 2nd character could be a pure assist and Tron and Haggar showed up frequently. In ultimate, your 2nd character needs to be counted on to start offense without assist support. If you lose your point character early, your 2nd needs to possibly generate 2 hits in order to give you the meter necessary to get to Dark Phoenix. This is why Doom is the most common 2nd character on Phoenix teams; among characters with good assists, he simply is the best one at creating enough solo offense to be a reliable plan B.
In vanilla Dark Phoenix didn’t really have counterpicks. She had to watch her step around Magneto or Akuma and Dormammu holing himself up in the corner behind a flame carpet could be tricky to get around but for the most part she was a power character, very straightforward and with a simple and easy to execute strategy. Ultimate is a different animal. She is completely dominated by Vergil anchor, Dr.Strange anchor and Strider anchor and has serious issues with Morrigan and Hawkeye in general. In short, she’s become a regular character with good matchups and drawbacks like the rest. Dark Phoenix as a strong anchor means that her teams are still good enough to be a strong tournament team that can beat most teams but they no longer dominate the game.
Spencer and his rad friends.
Spencer-any/Vergil-y/Hawkeye-a, Spencer-b/Wesker-b/Hawkeye-a, Spencer-any/Doom-b/x, Spencer-any/x/Taskmaster-a, Spencer-a/Sentinel-a/Akuma-b
Players to watch: Combo Fiend: She-Hulk/Spencer/Doom, Nova/Spencer/Hawkeye Knives: Spencer/Sentinel/Akuma BT | Yipes: Spencer/Vergil/Hawkeye
Generally the best Spencer teams are designed with one purpose in mind: to maximize combo potential enabling him to kill any character off one clean hit while offering some kind of projectile support allowing him to zip in freely and set up high low mixups. Hawkeye, Taskmaster, Chris and Iron man are better than Doom plasma beam in this case because the opponent is left standing after getting hit on the ground. The key to maximizing Spencer teams is making sure the two support characters can work well together.
Vergil/Hawkeye or Wesker/Hawkeye are good examples of duos who not only work well for Spencer’s purposes but can operate as a self-contained unit. Wesker and Vergil can both make excellent use of the Spencer assist for teleport resets, with Spencer-B being Wesker’s absolute favorite reset assist in the game. Of course since Doom-missiles can work well with Spencer this opens up the possibility of adding Morrigan to the team. Her projectile assist is not spectacular but the Morrigan/Doom trap may be too good to pass up. Nobody notable has made use of this team but there just may be something here that may cause this version of the team to move up the ladder and separate itself from other Spencer themed teams.
Dark Wesker is um…well…not rising; he’s actually falling pretty fast.
Dormammu-a/Magneto-a/Wesker-b, Wolverine-any/Spencer-b/Wesker-b, Spencer-a or b/Magneto-a/Wesker-b, Magneto-a/Dante-y/Wesker-b
Players to watch: Masta CJ: Dormammu/Magneto/Wesker
Wesker anchor was the flavor of the month early on with many people overreacting to the character’s overall power. While still good, his weaknesses are exploitable. He struggles with zoning and teams with Wesker anchor have significant trouble with Phoenix anchor teams and Morrigan teams in general unless the point character is particularly strong against her like Dormammu.
The problem with the Wesker anchor team is that even if you accept the premise that Wesker anchor is great and worth playing for you have to make sacrifices to get to that point. The whole point of discussing teams instead of individual characters is because as players we recognize the value of team synergy and how important assists are. When Wesker is your anchor you don’t get much support. Samurai edge is the best for extending combos but outside of certain Dante grapple setups it just isn’t a very good assist for much else.
That’s IF you accept that Dark Wesker really is worth fighting for. Evidence is starting to mount that he just isn’t. As the game trends back towards zoning and characters that Wesker isn’t designed to fight, playing a team like that may be betting it all on something that won’t get the job done. There are plenty of teams out there with inefficient anchors or anchors that have a very good reason to be afraid of Dark Wesker but when you look at the best teams in the game and the ones you’re likely to run into at the end of a tournament, there aren’t nearly as many as there used to be. As MorriDoom becomes more dominant, Wesker is the biggest loser.
Wolverine greatly misses vanilla
Wolverine/Wesker/Akuma, Wolverine/Storm/Akuma, Wolverine/Frank/Wesker
Players to watch: Justin Wong: Wolverine/Storm/Akuma Noel Brown: Wolverine/Frank West/Wesker and Wolverine/Wesker/Akuma
Being at the bottom of the 2nd grouping of teams isn’t a bad thing, it still puts you above about 115,000 other team combinations, just not above the best in the game. Wolverine still has some of the most destructive start of the round mixups and can scare a MorriDoom at the start of the round by not giving her room to breathe and get started.
But Wolverine’s problems start when the other side successfully rebuffs the start of the round attack and gets pushed out. His nerfs to berserker slash really hurt him when you look at the best characters zoning options. If Zero is holding a charged buster and assists or Morrigan has astral vision up with assists, Wolverine has no easy way in and has to carve his way in slowly which can be significantly more complicated. A player like Justin Wong has realized that Wolverine will always have a problem with zoning and switched his main Wolverine team to Wolverine/Storm/Akuma to try and mitigate the zoning problem as much as possible but this leads to a low damage team that has to be right repeatedly. In vanilla, Wolverine didn’t have this problem; he only had to be right once and then overwhelm the other side with drop in mixups until they’re finished.
So Wolverine is like Phoenix now. A perfectly good character who can contribute to some perfectly good teams, just he no longer dominates the metagame and forces you to address him first when thinking of what team you want to play. Maybe Capcom is better at this balance thing than we thought. Oh wait, I just remembered Zero is in this game. Never mind.
Part 3
Picking up right where we left off, we're going to touch base on the third and final segment of Viscant's tier list; Counter teams. These teams may not be among the dominant teams in the game on paper but they each have something worth highlighting that has brought them success in key match-ups.
Do I fight too dirty?
Trish-b/Vergil-y/Doom-b, Trish-y/Morrigan-y/Phoenix-y, Wesker-b/Trish-b/Dante-y, Trish-b/Wesker-b/Strider-y Players to watch: FC | Jago: Wesker/Trish/Dante
Trish is a very difficult character to tier individually. She handles some characters like Wolverine and Wesker spectacularly. She has an assist that is brilliant for resets. She can set up some near guaranteed unblockables with the right team. With the right partner (HIDDEN MISSILES) she can solve her damage problem or at least mitigate it by being able to repeat supers in the corner. She can battery safely and effectively against rushdown characters making her a strong Phoenix escort. Why isn’t she higher?
Simply put her best teams just aren’t as good as other best teams and she can be a liability if the other side has an answer to her and doesn’t have to come in to her. She has some great square jump pressure and arguably has the best dive kick in the game but her game is predicated on the other side fighting hard to get in. When she has to be the aggressor or she’s forced into a spot on the team that doesn’t favor her, her teams fall apart.
Kya kya kya kya (So I heard you like unblockables?)
Firebrand-any/Dormammu-a/Super Skrull-y, Firebrand-any/Dormammu-a/Amaterasu-y, Firebrand-any/Morrigan-y/Super Skrull-y
Players to watch: Zak Bennet: Firebrand/Dormammu/Amaterasu Toki: Firebrand/Dormammu/Skrull
By now Firebrand’s strategy is very well known. After landing a hit he can either set up unblockable resets or guaranteed snapback resets given the right assist or the right setup. When done flawlessly the game is essentially over in 1 hit. This team would move up the lists if it had more tournament success.
Even if Firebrand fails and/or the unblockable strategy is not a total success, Dormammu and Skrull or Dormammu and Amaterasu can operate well together. A REAL side benefit to this team. It may be among the best equipped to handle Morrigan. Both BT|Dieminion and Chris G mentioned how much they dislike playing zoning characters against Skrull during the lame play panel at UFGT8. Dormammu is another big threat to Morrigan. Add that to the threat of setting up repeated unblockable into snapbacks on her and her assists and you’re giving MorriDoom a lot to think about.
It’s true, Joe has in fact beat Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
Viewtiful Joe-a/Dr. Strange-b or y/Morrigan-y, Viewtiful Joe/Frank West-a/Rocket Raccoon-b
Players to watch: Kusoru: Viewtiful joe/Frank West/Rocket Raccoon BT|Dieminion: Viewtiful Joe/Dr.Strange/Morrigan
Both of these teams are built in the same way. Viewtiful Joe frustrates you with constant voomerangs and tries to provoke a predictable response. Joe expects you to dash in and try to get underneath his voomerang pressure. When you do, you run into a shopping cart, an eye of agamatto or a giant log out of nowhere, then you get combo’d and frustrated even more.
Other than Morrigan, nobody would argue that these characters are top 20 on their own, but in combination they’ve achieved some great success. BT|Dieminion has rode his fundamentals to multiple top 8s in majors and Kusoru shocked all of the US’s top players with his win at Final Round by carefully following the strategy and catching people rushing in. Given how people want to play Marvel, this team is great. Teams based around Spencer or Wolverine that have a single minded rushdown purpose are simply not equipped to deal with this kind of projectile assault. It remains to be seen whether these teams will hold up as more players try their own hand at zoning but it just goes to show that a well constructed team of “weak” characters can still win in UMvC3.
All hail the queen
Trish-any/Storm-a/Morrigan-y, Amaterasu-b/Storm-a/Akuma-b, Wesker-b/Storm-a/Akuma-b, Spencer-any/Storm-a/Sentinel-a
The most common Storm teams appear in sections above. Justin Wong plays Wolverine/Storm/Akuma , Fanatiq plays MSS, Dios-X plays Doom/Storm/Sentinel. All of these teams can more properly be classified as being primarily “other” teams and tiered higher even though they take advantage of this strategy as well.
Storm is a mid-tier character who has one trump card in her pocket. She is the single biggest threat to support characters in the game. Her DHC into hail activates instantly. Her team super into hail OTGs, is fast, safe and covers the entire lower portion of the screen, even wiping out Morrigan clone fireballs coming from behind. She can even force early x-factor occasionally; assuming proper spacing, when an assist is caught in the hail storm, the point character cannot push block to reduce damage or else the assist will take some bonus unscaled damage. Rather than taking damage on two characters, sometimes the only decision an opponent can make is an early x-factor which can screw them up for the entire rest of the game.
If someone relies too heavily on a particular assist such as Dante-a, Sentinel-a or Doom-b, Storm holding meter can always make the decision to pick it off and force them to play out the match without their preferred support character. Sometimes taking a team apart from the back can make all the difference.
99th tier: the worst possible team I can come up with.
Chun-Li -B/Phoenix Wright-b/Hsien-Ko-y Players to watch: Hopefully not you. Not only is there no damage on the team, all characters are in the wrong possible spot with the worst possible assist. Even low tier characters can be threatening if put in the right position. Chun needs to be 2nd or 3rd so you can TAC into infinite with her. Phoenix Wright needs help to get into turnabout mode and he can contribute a little with the dog assist. Hsien-Ko is a terrible anchor and needs to be used liberally as a golden armored assist in order to have any real value.
These three characters together could potentially form a team that might actually beat a few other teams but not with these assists or in this order. When you think about why this team fails and how minor tweaks could make it better, you can apply this same type of logic to your own team. Don’t lose to the select screen; give yourself and your characters the best possible chance at victory!
2014 Update
Marvel 3 is almost 3 years old now. There were a lot of suckers out there who spent Valentine's Day 2011 with significant others. What losers, am I right? For the rest of us (who didn't get early copies), there was Marvel, and it was good. We've come a long way in those three years. So happy early 3 rd birthday Marvel. In honor of this milestone it's time to talk about the 2014 Team Tier List!
The best teams in UMvC3 usually have something in common. Even if you haven't put it into words yourself, you definitely understand the concept. The goal of UMvC3 is to keep the other person from playing for as long as possible. It's too easy to lose in this game; even weak characters can kill an entire team given the proper opening and the right amount of resources. So it becomes the goal of the best players and the best teams to minimize these opportunities as much as possible.
This is not a new concept in the Marvel series. Early Marvel limited player interactions through the infinite. Land one hit, the other side doesn't get to play. XSF added onto the concept with infinite, guard break, then infinite the 2nd character. MvC1 introduced team beatings which took “you don't get to play” to the next level especially when Gold War Machine became popular. So UMvC3 isn't really paving new ground on this, it's just adding to the Marvel legacy. If anything UMvC3 is a lot more fair than some of the previous Marvel titles. You're probably not going to block Zero/Dante incomings but hey, at least you have a chance, right?
So with that in mind we're going to try and rank the teams at the top of UMvC3. The reason I'm going to do this by teams and not individual characters is because ranking the individual character is relatively meaningless in this game. We know who the 5 best characters are (some order of Morrigan, Zero, Vergil, Doom and Magneto), but what does that mean? The goal isn't to play the strongest characters, it's to construct the strongest team.
When I did the first team tier list a year and a half ago, one of the things I mentioned was that a lot of teams weren't fully defined three character units yet and that a lot of the best teams in theory weren't always the teams that were getting played. This has changed. I think by now we all know who the best characters are and who they pair up well with, and more importantly, people are playing these teams frequently and matching them up against each other often. So in other words, breaking news guys, Doom/Vergil is really good. In other news, fire is hot, water is wet and Taylor Swift is wonderful.
Let's get to it.
Dominance
Morrigan/Doom/Vergil
I don’t think this is much of a surprise to anyone. It’s one of the cases where theory fighter and pure results oriented thinking come to the same conclusion. In theory the team dominates almost the whole top tier and that’s pretty much exactly what we’ve seen happen over the past 24 months or so. Succeeding in Marvel is about creating stability. Chris G started playing Morrigan because he was frustrated with how “random” early game Ultimate Marvel was and his goal was to create order out of chaos. By adding Vergil, he’s done that.
Last year I wrote that MorriDoom might not be the best team but it could be the most important because of how many common team constructs that team invalidated. The addition of Vergil to the MorriDoom shell makes the team even harder to fight against. Not only is Morrigan a dominant early game force, having Vergil waiting at the end makes her even harder to fight against. At 950k health, Morrigan is actually a high health character relative to the other most common characters. In addition to that, hit confirming Morrigan is complicated. There are usually missiles coming at you if you happen to land a hit, and things that can surprise her during her zoning game like meteor smashes, assist vajras or teleport helm breakers all require x-factor to finish her off. Normally it’s worth it to kill her at all costs but with Vergil waiting in the anchor position? Now you have to actually think about it. Do you want to get choked out by Morrigan or have to fight Dark Vergil without x-factor? There is no right answer. That’s the point.
What value synergy?
Zero/Dante/Strider | Zero/Dante/Vergil
This team is interesting to me for a couple reasons. One, this team that doesn’t guarantee that the other side can’t fight back once they’re caught, it just makes it exceedingly difficult on them. While there are possible Zero/Dante unblockables, that’s not really what this team is about. This team is about hitting you once, landing the lightning loop then setting up unfair 50/50 mixups on your incoming characters that chain into other 50/50 mixups. Nothing is guaranteed but Zero just stacks probabilities in his favor and any successful conversion eventually leads to the lightning loop and a dead character.
Everyone already knows that though. What makes this team REALLY interesting to me is how you go about completing the team. The choice between Strider and Vergil anchor says a lot about how you play Marvel and what you value. On paper Strider is the obvious choice. Zero doesn’t get all that much out of rapid slash assist in the neutral game. Sure he can use rapid slash in sougenmu patterns, but it’s mostly a combo extender on this team and one that isn’t entirely necessary. Zero can finish and extend his combos just fine on his own. On the other hand, Strider is very useful to Zero in neutral, especially if you have the other side set up to expect jam session coming as often as possible. Strider is one of the 3 dominant anchors of Marvel (Vergil and Phoenix as the others). And most importantly Strider is probably Dante’s best assist making Dante into a full-fledged attacking character as opposed to a one dimensional support character.
So why does anyone pick Vergil on this team? Simply put, Vergil anchor is just that much better than Strider anchor for most people. So how much value does synergy actually have in this game? Honestly at this point I don’t think there’s a right answer and I think it’s more a matter of opinion. Is anchor Vergil that much of an upgrade over another great anchor character that you’d be willing to weaken Zero AND Dante just to have him waiting in the wings with level 3 x-factor and meter? The fact that it’s a tough call says a lot about where we are in this game right now. That’s the power of Vergil.
Versatile but vanilla
Magneto/Doom/Vergil | Zero/Doom/Vergil | Wolverine/Doom/Vergil | Nova/Doom/Vergil
These teams are grouped together due to the Doom/Vergil shell but they don’t play very much alike in the early game. The Zero version of the team tends not to TAC since Zero can kill off any touch no matter how scaled. The Wolverine version is hyper aggressive and tries to parlay Wolverine’s early game edge into multiple mixups. It’s likely the weakest version of the four but the easiest to play; just keep running mixups until you get pushed out and if you do get pushed out, you’re only a plasma beam + berserker slash away from getting back in. The Magneto and Nova versions are probably the best and most versatile since they can be both a dominant zoning team and a dominant rushdown team and switch between the two styles at will.
The overall theme of the top tier in UMvC3 is the fact that they turn the game into a 1 player game. But outside of the Zero variant there is a lot of multiplayer interaction in these teams. So why are they so good? Simply put, no character is better at what they do than Doom is at providing support with the possible exception of Vergil anchor. And this team gets both.
For Doom consider this. The character has the best TACs in the game, 2 top 10 assists and rocks assist is pretty good also. If the point character dies he has multiple solid evasion options on incoming and can safe DHC in your anchor if you choose to play it out that way. Outside of having hard drive to guarantee a safe incoming he has everything you could want. The built in downside to his great assists is that they’re designed to cripple your damage. If you get hit with a combo that starts with plasma beam or 6 missiles you’re supposed to either live through that or force them to burn their whole meter stockpile to kill you. For example, you start a Wolverine combo from the start of the round with plasma beam + berserker slash. The combo builds a meter and ends with OTG into rapid slash into double fatal claw. This combo will do somewhere between 775-900, depending on what hit started the combo (the berserker slash or the beam) and what variant of air combo you do. But the point is that Dante/Viper will probably live and that everyone in from Joe/Morrigan/Wolverine on up should definitely live. And it will cost the whole meter stockpile leaving him without berserker rage for the near future. It’s similar with Magneto and missiles. If he catches you with missiles he’s not supposed to be able to kill you without DHCing through the order or ending with gravity squeeze.
That’s how the game was designed, but that’s not really how Ultimate works. Thanks to TAC infinite to Doom you can start combos off anything, get a kill and have enough meter for Vergil to go crazy at the end of the game. Doom was designed to have his support qualities neutered by giving him relatively poor damage on DHCs and by having his combos scale tremendously. TAC infinites ruin everything though and have boosted teams like this up to the top. Strong point character, Doom, dominant anchor is the most vanilla team construction but it gets results and since Capcom refuses to patch TACs and this game in general, we’ll all have to put up with these teams until we move on from Ultimate. This is the game we play.
Dual anchor power
Zero/Vergil/Strider | Viper/Vergil/Strider | Dante/Vergil/Strider | Doom/Vergil/Strider
The hardest part of playing a Vergil/Strider team is playing Strider. In theory these teams have everything you can want. Vergil/Strider have a few different round trip glitch lockdown patterns that can limit the other side from playing for extended stretches. The teams all have excellent mixups and 1 touch kill power with the point characters. The teams are snap-proof since snapping in and killing Strider just means you have to face XF3 Dark Vergil which is probably worse for the opponent anyways. Both of the anchors can kill and then mix up the other side without letting them play.
But... you have to play Strider well in order to make these teams scary. And really that's why we haven't seen the Vergil/Strider shell explored as much as other top tier teams. Even in 2014 there are only a handful of Strider players out there that scare people. And if your Strider isn't at an elite level these teams aren't true top tier teams.
What's more, you're going to have to play Strider without x-factor sometimes on these teams. A common situation that arises while playing these teams is Vergil lands a helm breaker or vajra lands as an assist. Does Vergil use level 2 x-factor and go for the kill and the incoming mixup or should he save his x-factor for Strider. Technically the right move is to go for the kill and the mixup but if your Strider is only strong with orbs and x-factor you might not be able to make the optimal play.
So not only do you have to be a strong Strider player under normal circumstances, you have to be strong even without any resources at your disposal. The fact that there are so few successful Vergil/Strider players out there right now just details how hard it is. It also shows that these teams have potential and room for growth in the future.
Lesser MorriDoom teams
Zero/Morrigan/Doom | Magneto/Morrigan/Doom | Morrigan/Doom/Ammy | Morrigan/Doom/Strider
These teams are very strong but are just outside of the top grouping. The why is interesting though. For the 2nd two teams with Ammy and Strider isn't a huge mystery. Not having Vergil makes the teams easier to fight against and it makes the opponent's decision to use XF1 on Morrigan easier. Strider and Dark Ammy are still strong, but if you can XF kill Morrigan and successfully mix up Doom you're almost certainly going to win the game.
For the other two teams, the answer is that Morrigan just isn't as good when she's not a point character. She's still one of the strongest characters in the game but if you put her second then you give the other team the opportunity to build meter in order to stop her and it increases the odds that she's going to have to face an incoming mixup, meaning you could potentially lose Morrigan without even getting to play her.
Morrigan wins for a lot of reasons, but the most underrated reason is because she controls the meter game so well. Characters like Dormammu and Vergil depend so much on their meter to stop her. If you let them get 2 or 3 their odds of winning go way up. And because Doom is in the back on those teams, if they land anything they're definitely going to x-factor and kill her because they have no reason to fear anchor Doom.
So even though these are definitely strong teams consisting of some of the best characters in the game, because the characters aren't maximized, the teams aren't as good as they could be with a minor change.
The team that is Funding Nemo
Nova/Spencer/Strange
This may seem a little low for this team given how strong Nemo has been lately but I think this is just about right. Really, what's the difference between this team and optimal Zero teams? Both kill you off one touch but the incomings aren't quite as strong on this team. This team can kill off a ground throw and most Zero teams can't, but that's one of the only tangible advantages. And yes, saying that Zero is better than Nova isn't hard hitting technical analysis or really news to anyone but it bears mentioning that the strategy for this team and Zero teams is basically the same.
Spencer and Strange aren't Vergil; as I talked about on a blog post last year, this team is extremely front loaded. If you can get the first hit and kill Nova the threat level goes way down.
This is Spencer's first appearance on my list and I think that says a lot. What is Spencer's role in UMvC3 in 2014? He's not really one of the elite point characters. He's good but not elite. He's not a dedicated support character even though this team takes advantage of the unique properties of his assist. He's not one of the dominant anchor characters either. He's passable but he's not Vergil or anything. Spencer is a very strong character who kills basically anyone off one touch but that isn't all that special anymore. Spencer is already starting to fade a little bit and I think in 2014, outside of this team and a couple of other custom teams, his role in UMvC3 is decreasing, not increasing. As we move more into the era of specialization on top teams, Spencer will be the big loser of 2014 just as Wesker was the big loser of 2012-2013.
Have you see my Doom, dawg?
Magneto/Dorm/Doom
This is Dormammu's only appearance on the list, which seems strange given that he's a very strong character and very important overall since he fights Morrigan as well as any other character in the game. Filipino Champ has argued that optimized Dormammu is one of the 5 best characters in the game overall and while I don't necessarily agree, he makes some strong points. So why aren't there more strong Dormammu teams?
I'll answer this with another question. What's the second best Dormammu team? I asked people what they thought and got a variety of answers. Some people like Firebrand/Dorm teams, with all sorts of characters filling the 3rd spot like Ammy, Doom, Shuma, Dante. I've heard MODOK/Dorm/Doom, Strange/Dorm/Doom, Haggar/Dorm/Doom, Dante/Dorm/Doom, Zero/Dorm/Doom, Zero/Dorm/Magneto, Wesker/Dorm/Magneto, Magneto/Dorm/Strange. The Firebrand options are intriguing but nothing really stands out as deserving of being a top tier team.
Here's the problem with Dormammu. He's weak to being rushed down in the beginning of the match so he's not really a point character. His assists outside of fully charged liberation aren't neutral assists so he can't operate as your sole support character. Dark hole can give you combo extensions and it can act as a semi-lockdown assist situationally but Dorm cannot be your primary support character. He's not the worst anchor in the world but not the best either. So he's hard to build a team around in the orthodox/traditional sense.
If you're going to play him in the 2nd spot, you're going to need to play a support character in the anchor spot and you have to accept all that entails. Specifically on this team you're going to need to play Doom well enough to hold up against a lot of Vergils and Striders and oftentimes you're going to have to do it without x-factor. Since the main player of this team (F.Champ) has one of the best Dooms in the world, he can get away with it. That's the reason for his success. In other words, it's not about his Dormammu, dawg, it's about his Doom!
This is why other players haven't had the same level of success with this team and why there aren't more strong Dormammu teams floating around. Until you can play a support character at the same level as other people play anchor characters, Dormammu just doesn't fit even though he's one of the strongest characters in the game.
She hears voices in her head and they miss 2012
Viper/Magneto/Dante | Viper/Doom/Strider | Viper/Doom/Dante | Viper/Dante/Strider
Viper has dropped a little bit since the last time I made a list. It's not really that she's a weaker character now than she was then, just the game has changed around her becoming more air based and more keepaway oriented. Her stock has fallen a little bit as Zero and Morrigan's have risen. They don't have to challenge her strong ground tools as much and can attack her from angles that she has difficulty reaching even with Strider or Dante behind her.
Her gameplan is still the same as it was before, land a hit, get the kill then unblockable the incoming character and that's great...presuming that you can get that initial hit. She's not getting as many first hits against Morrigan and Zero and that's causing her to fall down the list a little bit. The matchups that she's strong in just aren't as common anymore.
Lesser Morrigan teams
Morrigan/Dante/Strider | Viper/Morrigan/Dante | Morrigan/Vergil/Strider
These are interesting teams that are mostly unexplored. We know that Morrigan with vajra and Morrigan with jam session definitely can work, just not a lot of players have put the work into these teams. All of these teams have 2 difficult characters, with Morrigan/Dante/Strider being probably the best but also the most user-unfriendly of the lot.
They need to be mentioned due to their strength but also because of what they mean for Morrigan and for the game in general. We know Morrigan is at her BEST with missiles, but that doesn't mean she's tied to them. I've even heard some players saying that Morrigan isn't even that strong a character outside of missiles. They're wrong, but there isn't a lot of proof to show that; almost all the top Morrigan players outside of Chrisis are still playing Doom. As more people pick up these teams, they'll show that there is life for Morrigan away from Doom, and it can be a good life at that.
Phoenix is not rising, but falling
Mag/Doom/Phoenix | Zero/Doom/Phoenix
So for right now Phoenix is just a lesser form of Vergil. This isn't really news to anyone; I've been saying this for awhile and I think most people agree.
Still, Phoenix is a misunderstood character, not just in 2014 Ultimate but in Marvel 3 as a whole. The goal of a Phoenix player is to never actually play Phoenix. I think the biggest misconception came early on in MvC3 where Phoenix players would frequently get blown out early and still win due to everyone's inexperience with the Marvel 3 engine and the Phoenix character herself. That still happens occasionally but that's not really the goal and that's definitely not something you can count on in high level Marvel anymore. If you're that consistently weak in the early game then Vergil isn't just a better pick, he's a significantly better pick since you need fewer resources to make a full comeback.
Phoenix is for players who are extremely dominant in the early game. You pick Phoenix to put pressure on the opponent in the early game and occasionally get a second chance at playing your point character. The character that a lot of people used to pick for 1 on 3 comebacks if they couldn't get it done in the early game is only hanging on to bolster an early game edge now. Again, this isn't really news, that's how it's always been for Phoenix players even in vanilla.
The future of Phoenix as an individual character and not as Vergil-but-worse is in Morrigan/Phoenix teams. Morrigan meter build assist takes pressure off the point character and it also opens up a backdoor strategy of using a freshly turned Dark Phoenix to battery for Morrigan. Alioune has been playing Magneto/Morrigan/Phoenix for some time with mixed results. New Southern California player Rusty Shackleford has been running Ammy/Morrigan/Phoenix with good results recently as well. Teams like Zero/Morrigan/Phoenix or even Doom/Morrigan/Phoenix could be dangerous in the future and could breathe life back into the Phoenix character.
And she needs it. She's very close to being gone from top tier Marvel for good. The current top Phoenix players like F.Champ and Neo should have dropped her long ago. Loyalty is all that's keeping her and these teams relevant.
Magneto, a leading actor in a supporting role
Dante/Vergil/Magneto | Wesker/Vergil/Magneto | Wesker/Magneto/Vergil | Zero/Magneto/Doom
Magneto is probably the most versatile of the top tier characters. While he's most often seen as a point character he's an excellent support character and can serve as a passable anchor character in a pinch. Disruptor assist is very fast, clocking in at full screen 35f (by comparison, plasma beam is 46f, unibeam is 47f, and bolts are 43f. Hawkeye arrows are 34f startup but have travel time). The speed allows Magneto assist to work effectively to counter-call other assists like missiles or to threaten a point character trying to set up a zoning pattern from full screen.
For example at Capcom Cup when Yipes faced off against Nemo in winners bracket, Yipes used the power of Magneto assist to fight off Nova/Strange. The speed of gunshot+disruptor was enough for him to react to Nemo trying to set up a gravimetric pulse from full screen and convert into a kill. Other assists can't really do the same thing. Even if you can use arrows, plasma beam or unibeam to get a similar conversion, they scale damage heavily, which matters for these teams. If you're going to be picking Dante or Wesker as your point character, you have to value damage. Magneto also has a relatively simple TAC infinite. If he wasn't such a strong point character he would still be picked pretty often since he can still hold these teams together thanks to his value as a support character.
Follow my lead...back to mid-tier
Firebrand/Doom/Ammy | Magneto/Doom/Ammy | Viper/Doom/Ammy | Vergil/Doom/Ammy
The original “follow my lead” teams have started to fade; really only the Firebrand version of this team is worthy of inclusion among the top teams. The other versions included more for completion's sake than actual merit. The Firebrand version has a mostly guaranteed kill on the incoming (if you're willing to spend the resources) after getting the first kill which sets it apart from the others. Firebrand's hard tag combos into Doom and synergy with the cold star assist make it a more complete team also.
Some players are getting better at blocking or countering “follow my lead”. I mean...I'm not, I'm pretty sure I went 0 for 2013 at blocking that but I notice players success rates improving. That's what this team comes down to at competitive level. The value you give up by having Ammy instead of a premium anchor (Strider or Vergil) has to be made up with Doom on point and that value is mostly coming from the team super. Once that decreases in value the overall team's value decreases in relation to the more optimal forms of those teams.
When theory fighter attacks...
Nova/Frank/Dante | Doom/Frank/Dante | Zero/Dante/Frank | Vergil/Dante/Frank | Spencer/Frank/Dante
There aren't many Frank/Dante players out there which makes this one of the harder teams to categorize. It's mostly Bee running this style team seriously and he plays the weakest variant. I think most people recognize that Frank/Dante is strong but they underestimate how strong it is. Getting Frank may cost you the kill (depending on the combo used this isn't always necessarily true) but it gains you a match winning character.
These teams are more volatile than the teams above them which is another reason they aren't played as much. Getting Frank comes close to guaranteeing you the win, but for most players losing their point character early comes close to guaranteeing the loss since they're left with some order of level 1 Frank (Frank Wack) and Dante, both normally weak characters.
It doesn't have to be like this though. Anchor Dante is never going to be confused with his brother but he can still get it done as an anchor character or with Frank supporting him and hopefully leveling through the next touch. Until the Dante players level up enough to feel confident and salvage some wins with this team even when things don't go exactly as planned, this team is going to remain more theory fighter than reality. Make me proud Frank/Dante players, make me proud!
Debrief
So now that we've explored where Marvel has been, let's talk about where it's going in 2014 and beyond. Since work prevented me from being there in person, I had the opportunity to watch NEC on stream and was surprised at how upset stream monsters were with the diversity in the early rounds. There was a stretch of 7 or 8 matches where every match had a Zero in it and some matches were Zero mirrors. Everyone “knows” how dominant Zero is but they hated seeing it in action.
So is this it? Is Marvel in the future going to be less about creating new teams and more about eliminating existing teams? Is Marvel 3 destined to be like Marvel 2 with a handful of top tier teams and then everything else pushed aside as “low tier”?
I don't think so. The cream will rise to the top, definitely. More people who are tired of losing are going to pick up Zero teams and then more people are going to pick up Vergil/Strider teams or Morrigan teams to counter those teams. Late rounds of tournaments will see more top tier and fewer unorthodox teams as everyone tries to optimize what they have. But we're not at the point where only optimized teams can win just yet. Evo was won this year by a non-optimized Zero team and was ALMOST won by Wolverine and two mid-tier characters with an unorthodox Shuma team in 3rd place.
And we haven't even fully explored what we have. There's still room for new teams to emerge. Most top tier teams right now are constructed according to a pretty specific formula.
We know who the strongest point characters are. Morrigan, Zero, Magneto, Nova, Wolverine.
We know who the strongest support characters are. Doom, Dante, Dr. Strange.
And we know who the strongest anchor characters are. Vergil, Strider, Phoenix.
So for right now the strongest teams are made through UMvC3 mad libs. You take the top tier point character you want to play, match them up with their favorite top tier support character and finish off the team with an anchor that benefits both the best.
But as players get better and fully master their characters there's room to think outside the box and be more creative. The most obvious way to break the mold is to master your support characters and put them in the anchor position which opens up new team construction ideas. As mentioned above, since Filipino Champ can play Doom so well, he has the opportunity to play anchor Doom and Dormammu in the second spot. Since Angelic can play Shuma so well he can also play Dormammu 2nd on his teams as well. Bee's Frank West team works because he's confident enough in his anchor Dante.
So even though a lot of players are going to be concentrating on optimizing their teams in 2014, there's still a chance that we're going to see all new top tier teams start to take over. Strong characters in different roles like anchor Zero or anchor Nova may open up new potential teams. Shuma becoming a more common support character opens up new teams also. In the end, that's what keeps Marvel hype to the majority of people and that's what keeps us coming back. The chance to try new things and see new things. So while the top tier IS definitely getting stronger, I don't think the age of exploration is fully over. I can't wait to see what people come up with throughout 2014. Here's to 10 more years!