I was working on typing out some thoughts on playing randoms in ranked to help beginners get going online, but it seems like the thread has already been boiled down to the mahvel regulars, so it might not be that helpful
. Honestly, it might not even be helpful to begin with, since I'm not very good at the game! Regardless, I think it'd be a waste not to post it and at least get some feedback, so here it is- playing marvel online, a handy guide to bullshit:
Its important to recognize bullshit immediately! People have said in the past that mahvel runs on bullshit, and those people are right. Bullshit, especially online, tends to be a fairly small set of strategies which youll encounter frequently. Youll have just a couple seconds to think of how to deal with your opponents bullshit before the match starts, so its important to have a decent bullshit database in your memory. As you encounter more bullshit, this database will expand. Every time you lose to bullshit, take a moment to think back on what you can do to counter it better next time, and store that info away in your mental database. Good bullshit will always be good, but online bullshit is often one-dimensional and can be dealt with pretty consistently. Lets look at some examples!
Example one: You see your opponent has Hsien-Ko on point with two other characters. You instantly recognize (because Hsien-Ko is such ass that there is no other reason to have her on a team) that their bullshit is that they will golden armor up Hsien-Ko as soon as possible, and then hard tag her into the third slot and try to ride her invincible assist to victory. The best way to prevent bullshit will always vary from team to team, but my strategy is to get on her ass immediately when the match starts. Regardless of type, the best way to deal with bullshit is to never let them get it going in the first place. Outside of this specific set-up, Hsien-Ko is ass and golden armor has start-up, so I rush her down, which will hopefully prevent her from ever getting the hyper off, and if Im lucky, she might burn a bar on it only to be knocked out of it on start-up and be left meter-less. If she somehow gets it off, Ill be close-by so that I can punish the inevitable raw tag. Snapping her in means she has to set it up all over again. A good player will wait and DHC to safely get her assist out, but this is online, so you dont really have to worry about that.
Example two: This isnt bullshit really, but I went up against somebody the other night, and they were running Iron Fist/X-23/Wesker. It was important that I recognized two things: one- they didnt have too much bullshit- they pretty much only had xf3 dark wesker, and two- this team was highly susceptible to bullshit- he had no projectile assist or reliable way to get in at all! I played the lamest possible keep-away and killed off both Iron Fist and X-23 without losing a character, and built up plenty meter to fight dark wesker at the end in the process.
Other examples: Your opponent has an anchor like Hawkeye/Akuma/Dr. Strange with a highly damaging near-instant hyper made all the more dangerous with xf3. 90% of the time, when they get down to this last character, they will spend every last bar of meter they have as quickly as possible on random hypers, so absolutely do not call assists until x-factor runs out, and jump/super-jump around a bit while blocking to get them to burn their meters as soon as possible. Also, be aware of good/bad match-ups and change the order of your team to avoid bad ones and take advantage of good ones.
I feel like building your team according to a basic checklist is good, and having the checklist in the front of your mind will allow you to pick apart flaws in the opposing team to exploit. You should build your team with things in mind like:
-Can you deal with a dedicated rush down team?
-Can you deal with a dedicated zoning team?
-Can you deal with ghost rider S spam/wesker jump back gun/vajra assist/etc. annoying bullshit?
-Does your team fall apart completely if you lose a character?
-Does your team build sufficient meter to do its thing?
-Do you have a way to use x-factor/meter at any point you need if you really need to in order to seal the deal against a troublesome/last character?
-Can you punish assists easily?
-Does your anchor have the capability to make a solid comeback? do they have a lot of bad match-ups? can they fight respectably without assists/meter? can they abuse x-factor and also fight without it if they need to?
A list from FlyingVe, a smart poster on the srk forums (spelling errors are his):
I try to design all my teams with a couple of tenants (in order of importance) in mind:
1)They are about the point character. You team will never be stronger then when you have all 3 guys alive. Your better optamizing that then what happens after.
2)That said, I want to make sure that the second character gets sufficient support from the 3rd. Good example are Strider can make Vergil strings safe and Spencer likes Drones just as much as Nova.
3)The order should function at an acceptable (not optimum) level if it's F'd up.
4)It's nice if you anchor can do the whole XF3 BS thing. Strider is great at this, Sent... is okay.
5) it's preferable if you point character can do something for your others. (e.g. on a Zero/Viper team, Zero builds alot of meter for Viper to use when it's her turn).
Pick apart the opposing team with the same mindset with which you built yours. Most people online have questionable/poorly-thought-out teams, and hitting them where theyre weakest is the best way to achieve victory. If they lack in ways to keep you off of them, rush that shit down, even if its not generally your game plan. If they have no good ways to get in, lame that shit out. Your team should have good bullshit of its own, and if you recognize that they have no way to effectively deal with your stuff, abuse the shit out of it. If their team is based entirely around a single character, spend meter/x-factor/whatever resources necessary to kill that one character so that their team disintegrates. If they have difficulty punishing assists, spam the hell out of em. If they have a shitty anchor, theres no reason not to blow x-factor early to kill their second character the moment you touch them. If their team only works well in a specific order, fuck up the order. As you do this more and more, it will get easier to quickly notice possible flaws to exploit in the opposing team, and having some kind of match-up strategy figured out before the match even starts can help you win much more consistently. It's also a fun mental exercise to try to predict what they'll do before the match even starts, and more often than not, you'll find that you're right.
