Last week, we spent some time going over Storm, the latest addition to the Marvel Strike Force roster, but there are even more new characters on deck and they’re likely all villains, something MSF desperately needs.
As far as new characters go, we know that three new additions are coming, including Loki and Ultron. The third is a mystery at this point, but we’re comfortable speculating that it’ll be Venom, given the movie’s release is next month .
Loki is already on the in-game roster and you can take control of him in one of the Cosmic campaign missions, so we have a pretty good idea for how he’ll play at this point. He’ll be a Mystic Controller which makes him immediately relevant as he can be used in the Mystic campaign, but his kit isn’t looking super impressive to me. It appears to have gone through some iteration (read: nerfing) before his release. Loki was looking absolutely terrifying with his passive granting him 100% turn meter at the start of the match (now 15%) and +50% turn meter to Mystic Controller allies (now 10%).
The real standouts are Loki’s ability to apply Defense Down and mind control members of the enemy team to attack his debuffed target and his mirror images. I imagine Mind Control’s effectiveness will largely depend on RNG, since you don’t get to control which enemies are forced to attack your target. Mirror Image looks to me like a worse version of Hand Sentry’s AoE Stealth+Evade, though Loki has a lot more going for him than Hand Sentry does outside of his one claim to fame. That said, since Mirror Image does not apply Evade to allies, it won’t be useful as a counter to the AoE-heavy meta. All in all, Loki sounds like a mixed bag to me right now. Thankfully, he’ll be out soon (via Blitz), so I’ll try to reserve judgment until I’ve been able to put him through his paces myself.
Ultron will be released as part of a new game mode called Dark Dimension, which FoxNext says will be the toughest challenge players have faced yet. The mode is meant to be a long term challenge for players, with multiple difficulties and gauntlets of tough fights to get through. Ultron will get a rework to beef him up in time for his release, but we have no details at this time as to what that will entail.
As for the third character, we’re speculating that it will be Venom due to the movie release, but all we have to work off of for his potential kit is some old datamined information, which is almost assuredly out of date. Still, if we go off of this information, Venom would be a Bio Origin Controller with the ability to apply damage-over-time effects, Heal Block, and AoE Ability Block. Personally, I’d like to see him as more of a brawler/tank focused on damage than a character emphasizing crowd control or debilitating effects, so I’m hoping this information is inaccurate. As exciting as all those debuffs and DoTs would be, I’d rather see the character take on a different focus.
As for how he would unlock, I’d expect an all new Symbiote-focused raid à la Deadpool and Thanos. This is a major film release, so if anything is worth a new raid treatment, it’ll be Venom. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for raids has dried up in recent months. They’re fine when you’ve only got one to focus on, but juggling two each day has really strained my patience for the game at times. I’m expecting a new raid, but I’m hoping for an Event Campaign.
Which of these new characters are you looking forward to most and why? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
