Cosmic Crucible - Defensive Setup (Season 9) | Marvel Church (2024)

Intro

Choosing a defensive setup for Cosmic Crucible is not an easy task. We get Victory Points based on the number of turns we take to clear the Stage and your remaining Health. This practically means the best teams should be left for Offense and that you should pick your Defense from the teams that remain.

Essentially, you must leave 6-7 strong teams for your Offense. Then you need to pick the best Defensive setups for each Stage from the rest of your roster. The most viable strategy for Cosmic Crucible is to make sure that you can beat any enemy setup as fast as possible and without casualties.

Your Defense is meant to slow your enemy down and decrease their efficiency score. You won’t be able to win with Defense only, that’s why picking teams for Defense is always secondary, first and foremost you must make sure that you have strong Offensive options.

We will provide you with Defensive team suggestions for every Stage, that will follow those principles.

Important – with every new Season or new Update, this page will be updated accordingly with the current defensive META.

Let’s begin!

Season 9

Season 9 will officially start on July 12th, when the matchmaking goes live, and the first Trial will start on July 14th, a day earlier than we’re used to. This season will last 49 Days. Along with the new Global and Stage Rules, this season also brings improved rewards and a new marquee team that can shine on Offense and Defense alike.

Platinum League rewards will now grant Diamond Orb Fragments (instead of Diamond Dawn Orb Fragments), and Diamond League will grant higher quantities of Diamond Orb Fragments. The Masters League will receive a new Orb – Master Diamond Orb. This Orb will include Diamond promotion for the latest new and/or reworked 100 Characters and will have a higher chance of dropping 2 or 3 Diamonds for them. On top of that, the Rank Brackets are revamped and will now include more brackets with improved rewards for top-performing players.

The Global Rules will allow Wakandan characters to count as Illuminati, this may be beneficial early into the season while not all Illuminati members are released, but as time progresses Wakandan use cases will drop. Due to the fact that not everyone might unlock Captain Britain, there is an option to use a Wakandan as the last member of your team, especially if you have them built up already and can’t/won’t invest in reworked Illuminati members like Iron Man/Black Bolt/Mister Fantastic, etc.

Stage Rules are fairly open and don’t favor any singular teams/traits, instead focusing on Iso Classes, Energy distribution, etc. We have 2 Stages that are making a return appearance, 3 new Stages that may use familiar mechanics with a slightly newer spin, and a Stage that was made in collaboration with the winner of the first Envoy Cosmic Crucible Tournament – Dulom. Defensive teams, as usual, will have a small bonus to their Health and Damage and will gain +1 stack of Exhausted on each Defensive victory.

Exhausted will function similarly to how it does in War, where after each attack the defending characters will get a 20% decrease in their primary stats(Health, Damage, Focus, Resistance, Armor). Exhausted Effect can stack, so after two failed attempts the defending enemies will have their stats decreased by 40%. That should help minimize the situations where players are unable to complete any Stage. Cancelled attacks will not apply Exhausted.

Quick Setups

If you don’t want to go in-depth here are 2 examples of Quick Setups depending on your preference, for more detailed information or more alternatives simply scroll down.

Defense Heavy Setup:

• Stage 1 – X-Treme X-Men + Rogue (no Nightcrawler)
• Stage 2 – Hive-Mind + Super Skrull + Sasquatch (no Venom, Gwenom)
• Stage 3 – Spider-Society + Black Knight (no Noir)
• Stage 4 – Logan, Nightcrawler, Pandapool, Phoenix, Bishop
• Stage 5 – Superior Six
• Stage 6 – Illuminati

Offense Heavy Setup:

• Stage 1 – Alpha Flight
• Stage 2 – Spider-Society
• Stage 3 – Infinity Watch
• Stage 4 – Mercs For Money
• Stage 5 – Darkhold
• Stage 6 – X-Treme X-Men + Rogue (no Cyclops)

Our Current Setups

Below you’ll find the Defensive setups that we use, alongside the teams that will carry out the Offense.

KanaMC; Level 100; TCP – 65 Million; League – Platinum I League :

• Stage 1: X-Treme X-Men + Rogue (no Sunspot) – 2,4 mil
• Stage 2: Hive-Mind + Super Skrull + Sasquatch – 2 mil
• Stage 3: Black Knight + Spider-Society (no Noir)
• Stage 4: Secret Defenders + Morgan Le Fay + Nick Fury – 2,4 mil
• Stage 5: Out Of Time + Wolverine (no Black Knight) – 2,3 mil
• Stage 6: Mercs For Money + Vahl (no Deathpool) – 2,2 mil

Teams that will carry out the Offense:

• Superior Six (2,1 mil)
• Masters of Evil (1.8 mil)
• New Warriors (1,9 mil)
• Cabal (1 mil)
• P.E.G.A.S.U.S. (2,2 mil)
• Knowhere (2 mil)
• Gamma (1,7 mil)
• New Avengers (1,7 mil)
• Undying (800k)
• Plug-and-play characters: Apocalypse (768K), Ikaris and Sersi (770K), Weaver and 2099 (700K), Omega Red (392), Doctor Doom (347K)

Kana(alt); Level 100; TCP – 54 Million; Platinum III League :

• Stage 1: Out Of Time + Mister Negative (no Black Knight) – 2,3 mil
• Stage 2: Spider-Society + Black Knight – 2,5 mil
• Stage 3: Hive-Mind + Sabretooth (no Void Knight)- 2,2 mil
• Stage 4: Logan, Nightcrawler, Phoenix, Pandapool, Absorbing Man – 2,1 mil
• Stage 5: Darkhold + Fury (no Scarlet Witch) – 1,7 mil
• Stage 6: X-Treme X-Men + Quicksilver + Rogue (no Nightcrawler, Sunspot)- 2,4 mil

Teams that will carry out the Offense:

• Secret Defenders (2,5 mil)
• Cabal (1,8 mil)
• Masters of Evil (1.4 mil)
• Superior Six with Vulture (2,4 mil)
• New Warriors (1,5 mil)
• P.E.G.A.S.U.S. (2,1 mil)
• Undying (900K)
• Eternals (520k)
• Black Order (1.1 mil)
• Tangled Web (Weaver, Noir, and 2099) (1 mil)
• Plug-and-play characters: Apocalypse (841K), Super Skrull (688K), Void Knight (640K), Kestrel (580K), Red Hulk (480K), Archangel (420K), Doctor Doom (390K), Nova (412K), Emma Frost (101K)

Sandugp; Level 100; TCP – 56 Million; League – Platinum III League :

• Stage 1: X-treme X-Men + Rogue (no Nightcrawler) – 2,27mil
• Stage 2: Hive-Mind + Skrull (no Venom) – 2,77 mil
• Stage 3: Spider-Society – 2,38 mil
• Stage 4: Logan, Nightcrawler, Kingpin, Pandapool, Daken – 1,81 mil
• Stage 5: Darkhold – 1,67 mil
• Stage 6: Bifrost – 1,94 mil

Teams that will carry out the Offense:

• Secret Defenders (3,25 mil)
• Cabal (1,83 mil)
• Masters of Evil (1,7 mil)
• Superior Six (2 mil)
• New Warriors (1,19 mil)
• Secret Avenger (1,25 mil)
• P.E.G.A.S.U.S. (1,93 mil)
• Knowhere (2,06 mil)
• Undying (400 K)
• Eternals (440 K)
• Out of Time (2,93 mil)
• Tangled Web (Weaver and 2099) (910 K)
• Plug-and-play characters: Apocalypse (841K), Kestrel (666K), Red Hulk (574K), Archangel (369K), Doctor Doom (500K), Nova (526K), Dormammu (397K), Emma Frost (332K), Mister Negative (606K), Vulture 594K), Nick Fury (332K), Black Widow (349K)

Global Effects –The Guiding Hand

Wakandan Characters:

• Count as Illuminati.

On Defense, all Characters:

• Gain +20% Health and +10% Damage.
• After each completed attempt, gain +1 Exhausted. Canceled attacks will not add Exhausted.

Stage 1 – Full House

Stage Effects:

On Defense and Offense:

• Striker characters with Ability Block – gain +50% Damage. When attacking a character with Ability Block, apply Bleed.
• Raider characters – On Turn, if this character has Ability Block, clear Ability Block and heal self for 10% of this character’s Max Health.
• Skirmisher characters – On a successful attack, apply Ability Block to the primary target.

This Stage follows the tradition of Stage 1 having an Iso-related buff, whereas it boosts characters based on their Iso and not their Traits or team affiliations. This is great because it means that, potentially, any character can be used here to some extent as long as you switch up their Iso class.

This iteration of Iso-related buff is one of the more creative ones because it allows you to make a dangerous team simply by switching the Iso Classes. For example: if the character is fast, you can equip him with a Skirmisher Iso, and all of his abilities will apply Ability Block to the primary target. If a character has an important supportive function (healing, buffs, Taunt), you can use the Raider Iso, in which case even if they get Ability Block, they will cleanse it on their turn and will still use their important abilities. The only way to control Raiders will be by either Stunning them or applying Trauma and Ability Block. Lastly, Strikers with Ability Block on them will gain bonus damage and will apply Bleed when hitting a target with Ability Block.

Any strong team that currently has other use cases (Raid, War) will be a good option for this Stage, you only will need to fiddle with their Iso-8 Classes.

Best Defense – X-Treme X-Men + Rogue (no Sunspot)
Optimal Defense – X-Treme X-Men + Rogue (no Nightcrawler)
Budget Defense – Alpha Flight

X-Treme X-Men+

Characters left-to-right:

• Sunspot (Iso – Raider)
• Nightcrawler (Iso – Skirmisher)
• Gambit
• Cyclops
• Forge (Iso – Raider)

It can be the full X-Treme or a mix, you could replace Sunspot with Rogue. Preferably, you want all or most of your characters to be Raiders, but in the case of X-Treme, make sure that at least Rogue and Forge are Raiders.

X-Treme X-Men are a dangerous team under any circ*mstances, but this room can allow them to shine even brighter. The normal way to counter X-Treme is by applying Ability Block to Forge, preventing the team from getting even more buffs or a Revive. That said, if we give Forge the Raider Iso, he will be able to cleanse Ability Block on Turn, and will then proceed to use his Abilities to buff his team. If you use Rogue with X-Treme (either instead of Sunspot), she should also be a Raider for the same reason. You could even use the full X-Treme team here with Rogue instead of Nightcrawler, allowing you to use NC with Logan in another room.

Nightcrawler is also very fast, so we can use him as a Skirmisher, which will allow him to apply Ability Blocks on his turn. He’s fast and can clear negative effects on turn thanks to his passive, so he doesn’t need to have Raider to cleanse.

Nightcrawler can also be a strong ally with Logan in another room, so you could use the X-Treme team here without him and use Dormammu instead, they won’t be as strong but can still hold their own and if underestimated might net you a win.

Alpha Flight

Characters left-to-right:

• Northstar (Iso – Raider)
• Sunfire
• Guardian
• Wolverine (Iso – Skirmisher)
• Sasquatch (Iso – Raider)

Alpha Flight as one of the newest teams will have the advantage when it comes to stats, their Health and Damage will be better than of an older team and they can be a good budget option for this Stage. As long as you have them built up for Spotlight Raids or War Defense, you can use them in here as well. They won’t be too hard to beat as long as the opponent knows what to do, yet they can still eat away some efficiency or get a victory now and then.

Alternatives

Out Of Time – A full OOT team will always be good on defense, thanks to counters from Black Knight. For lower CC Leagues, up to Platinum, this can be a good option for any room since they will also Spawn with Immunity. But for higher Leagues you want to consider making stronger defenses, in which case you will want to use Black Knight elsewhere. You can still use OOT without BK as a defensive team, if you have them built up high they will do well enough, and you can add a strong 5th character to help them, they won’t be the best at defense, but they will be good enough and will allow you to use BK elsewhere, which is very important.

Infinity Watch – can do as well here as in almost any other Stage, thanks to their buffs on Spawn (Safeguard+Defense Up+Immunity combo). They will be impervious to any negative effects early on and the only downside to them is the low stats by modern standards. Then again, they also Defense Up on Spawn, some Revives, and can Heal often, which means that they will do exactly what they are meant to do – slow down your opponent and eat away at their efficiency score.

For any lower leagues or if players prefer saving more power for offense, you could also use Gamma, Black Order, New Avengers, Infestation, just make sure to give the fastest characters on the team Skirmisher Iso, so that they can apply Ability Block, and Raider to support characters that need to Heal/apply buffs/Taunt, etc.

Stage 2 – Fatigued

On Defense and Offense, All characters:

• Ultimate Abilities cost 2 less to use.
• When using Ultimate Abilities, gain Slow.
• On ally turn, characters with Slow gain Assist now.

This is an interesting spin to a familiar Stage. Nearly every season we have a stage that increases or decreases the Ultimate Ability cooldowns, but this time it will also add an Assist Now mechanic. So every time your character uses their Ultimate, they gain Slow. And any character with Slow will get Assist Now on turn. So while there is a demerit to you for using an Ultimate, there is also a benefit.

Hive-Mind

Characters left-to-right:

• Void Knight
• Gwenom (or Sasquatch)
• Venom (or Super Skrull)
• Carnage
• Red Goblin

Hive-Mind is a dangerous team on their own, but they also have incredibly strong Ultimates and a way to earn bonus Speed Bar. On this Stage, they will be a force to be reckoned with because they will be able to use their Ultimates even more often and that can lead to more victories.

Granted, there are plenty of teams who can defeat HM at this point, so to solidify our position, we should use Super Skrull with this team. In that case, the opponent will be forced to use a meta team (Illuminati, Cabal) or a Mythic character team (Super Skrull, Apocalypse). To make things even more difficult, we can replace Gwenom with Sasquatch. Sasq will have Taunt on Spawn and will Taunt as long as he has high Health, so that can interrupt some of the counters, or at least make them trickier to pull off.

Mercs For Money

Characters left-to-right:

• Pandapool
• Old Man Logan
• Deadpool
• Deathpool
• Daken

Mercs can also be a great option for this Stage, mainly thanks to Logan as he will be the leading force. Logan’s Ultimate is very important for his kit and being able to use it even sooner will be very beneficial for you. Even as the Mercs are now, they will require a strong team to beat them (unless your Logan is small-ish).

A better version of this team would be using just Logan, Pandapool, and adding in Nightcrawler. That trio will be the core of the team, and you can complement them by using Bishop with Phoenix, or Noir with Daken. You can also experiment with other options, maybe some of them will successfully confuse your enemies.

Spider-Society

Characters left-to-right:

• Peni Parker
• Spider-Man (Noir) or Black Knight
• Ghost-Spider
• Spider-Man (Pavitr)
• Peter B. Parker

Spider-Society is an altogether strong defensive team, they are fast (thanks to Pav), have tons of buffs on Spawn, and can gain even more early on, including Immunity, and all of that makes that fearsome, even under normal conditions (when they can start with their Special abilities). But if they start with their Ultimates, as they can do on this Stage, their potential increases even further. Pav will deal immensely more damage with his Ultimate, Peni can clear all negative effects from her allies, Peter B. can apply more Positive effects and heal the team, etc. This team can be enhanced by using Black Knight instead of Noir, to give you even more of an edge.

Worth mentioning, that the next Stage might also be a good fit for Spider-Society, so you can place any of the aforementioned teams here and use Spiders on Stage 3.

Alternatives

Darkhold – is a decent budget alternative for this Stage, because Morgan will start with her Ultimate and will gain Slow, after which she will assist on each ally attack, and her Basic can deal damage based on enemy Health, so it will hit hard. You can even replace Scarlet Witch with a pre-taunt to protect Morgan from an early Stun/Ability Block. So you can use Sasquatch, Jugg Zombie, or even Fury, who will summon minions that Taunt.

And if you don’t want or can’t use any of the listed teams here, you can use older teams like Black Order, Tangled Web, Death Seed or anything else you have available. For lower CC leagues that should be fine.

Stage 3 – Twisted Blade

On Defense and Offense, all characters:

• With Vulnerable, on a successful hit, apply Vulnerable up to a max of 5.
• When attacking a character with Vulnerable, apply Bleed.

For this Stage, we can either use characters who can apply Vulnerable on Spawn, which will allow us to effectively utilize the Rules, or we can ignore the rules altoghether and just use any strong teams.

Best Defense – Spider-Society + Black Knight (no Noir)
Optimal Defense – Spider-Society
Budget Defense – Infinity Watch

Spider-Society

Characters left-to-right:

• Peni Parker
• Spider-Man (Noir) or Black Knight
• Ghost Spider
• Spider-Man (Pavitr)
• Peter B. Parker

Spider-Society can apply Vulnerable on Spawn, thanks to Pav, which means that they can use the Stage rules immediately after Spawning. Additionally, Peter B can clear Vulnerable from his team, meaning that the opponents won’t be able to utilize the Stage rules as freely, as your team.

The Bleed they can potentially apply thanks to the stage rules might be a nice little improvement, but mostly Spider-Society are just a powerful team on their own and they can net you some victories, especially if you pair them with Black Knight

Infinity Watch

Characters left-to-right:

• Gamora
• Moondragon
• Adam Warlock
• Phyla-Vell
• Nebula

Infinity Watch are overall a decent team and a good defensive option for any Stage, and they can also be used here as a budget option. As usual, the Safeguard+Immunity combo on spawn will allow them to slightly delay your opponent, lowering their efficiency score.

Alternatives

Superior Six – can be used here as a strong defensive team, the enemies won’t be able to apply Vulnerable to them while Goblin has Charged, so it will offer them some more protection from the Stage Rules, and even without that, this team is pretty strong.

Secret Defenders – could be a valid option for this Stage because of Ghost Rider’s Passive, which allows him to gain bonus Speeb Bar any time an enemy gains Bleed. However, this usually doesn’t work if the Bleed is applied by the Stage and not the character kit. Yet, even if that doesn’t work, SD are a strong team and can hold their ground. But it will be important to replace Strange with a strong plug-and-play, to introduce some uncertainty and prevent known counters.

Stage 4 – Vibranium Enhanced

On Defense and Offense, All characters:

• When using Basic Abilities, Generate Ability Energy
• Ultimate abilities cost +2 more Ability Energy.

On Defense, All characters:

• When using Special Abilities, gain Defense Up, Regeneration, and Offense up.

A good Defense for this stage would include a team with strong Special abilities, or a team that can generate Ability Energy for themselves quickly, either through their own kit, or through Stage rules, using Basic abilities.

Best Defense – Illuminati
Optimal Defense – Logan, Nightcrawler, Pandapool +2
Budget Defense – Secret Defenders+

Illuminati

Characters left-to-right:

• Captain Britain
• Black Bolt
• Black Panther (Shuri)
• Mister Fantastic
• Hank Pym

As the newest Crucible team, Illuminati will be a fearsome and almost impenetrable defense, especially if the opponents can’t start the fight by using their Ultimate Abilities. Conversely, Illuminati themselves will have no issues starting with their Specials since normally most of them do that anyway, and they can also generate Ability Energy to themselves, either from Shuri’s or Iron Man’s Abilities. The Captain Britain version of the team will prevent any Speed Bar manipulations, making this team even stronger, and allowing for only a few viable counters. Until Captain Britain is out, we can still use a full Illuminati team, but they will not be as strong so in that case it might be worth selecting an alternative defense.

Old Man Logan +

Characters left-to-right:

• Pandapool
• Old Man Logan
• Deadpool
• Deathpool
• Daken

Old Man Logan can be of great value as a defender of this Stage, mainly because teams that counter him will rely on Ultimate abilities and while Logan himself needs to Ult quickly too, he can generate ability energy for himself pretty fast, so it won’t be as big of an issue for him. We can use either the standard Mercs For Money, replacing only Deathpool so that we have her with New Warriors on offense. Or we can go for a stronger alternative.

Logan, Nightcrawler, and Pandapool will be the 3 core characters of the stronger alternative. Nightcrawler is fast and can often take the first turn, this will help Logan gain energy and get to his turn faster because his Assists do exactly that, generate energy and fill his Speed Bar, not to mention that Nightcrawler’s Special will additionally fill Logan’s Speed Bar. Pandapool will serve here as a Protector, but we’re mostly relying on the reflexive Taunt that he gains when he drops below 50% Health. To further improve Logan’s odds, we can add Bishop and Phoenix to the mix. Bishop will Taunt on Spawn, while Phoenix will Taunt when an ally Taunts, providing even more protection. All of this is designed to keep the attention away from Logan and buy him enough time to defeat the opponent. But there are other options that can be used instead of Phoenix/Bishop, like Daken and Noir, Fury and Sasquatch, or any other combinations with characters with useful Special abilities.

Secret Defenders

Characters left-to-right:

• Photon
• Ghost Rider (Robbie)
• Doctor Strange or Morgan le Fay
• Black Cat
• Ms. Marvel (Hard Light)

Secret Defenders can be a great option for this stage because they have powerful Special abilities, which will allow them to gain some bonus protection from the Stage rules and deal massive damage to opponents at the same time. Additionally, because of the stage rules, some of the most common counters to SD (like New Warriors) will not work as well, or fail altogether, because they often rely on using Ultimate abilities. To add some more chaos into the mix, we can replace Doctor Strange with Morgan Le Fay, who also has a chaotic Special, or any other character with good Special abilities.

Alternatives

Superior Six is a worthwhile alternative, mainly because they will have enough Protection on Spawn, Lizard’s Special also applies Taunt to him so the enemies will have to target Lizard either way. Doctor Octopus will start the battle with his Special, which will summon Shoker, and he can provide bonus Ability Energy to the team so before long they will be able to use their Ultimates. But the fact that Green Goblin can’t Ult turn one does hurt your chances, which is why this team is only an alternative.

Full Darkhold can be an okay budget option, mainly because Morgan’s Special can be chaotic and the results may end up hurting the opponents’ efficiency score. But her teammates rely more on their Ultimates, so they will perform worse.

Stage 5 – Health Insurance

On Defense and Offense, All characters:

• On Turn, Clear all positive effects from self and heal 10% of that character’s Max Health for each positive effect removed.

This is a familiar Stage since we had it in one of the previous seasons. There are only a couple of ways to use this stage – either pick teams that do not rely on positive effects, or a team that has Safeguard.

Best Defense – Illuminati
Optimal Defense – Superior Six
Budget Defense – Darkhold

Illuminati

Characters left-to-right:

• Captain Britain
• Black Bolt
• Black Panther (Shuri)
• Mister Fantastic
• Hank Pym

While they do not have Safeguard on Spawn, Hank Pym is a pretty fast character and he will start the fight with his Special, which will apply Safeguard for 2 turns to the team, meaning that the team will be protected and will keep all of their positive effects. The other Illuminati members normally start the battle using their Specials (except Captain Britain and the reworked Mister Fantastic/Iron Man) so the team will still work as intended. Once players have the full Illuminati team, this Stage will be hard to beat in a single try, but until then it may be prudent to use an alternative. However, the full Illuminati team without Captain Britain (Hank, Shuri, Black Bolt, Iron Man, Mister Fantastic) will still be a better option, than some of the older teams.

Superior Six

Characters left-to-right:

• Lizard
• Doctor Octopus
• Kraven The Hunter
• Green Goblin (Classic)
• Spider-Slayer

Superior Six also Spawn with Safeguard, making them a decent option for this Stage. On top of already having strong kits, and the Crucible bonuses they gain, this team will be able to hold off your opponents even once they start losing their positive effects.

Darkhold

Characters left-to-right:

• Wong
• Strange (Heartless)
• Scarlet Witch
• Morgan Le Fay
• Agatha Harkness

Darkhold will Spawn with 2 turns of Safeguard which will allow them to keep their positive effects, but other than that DH are a known thing at this point and there are plenty of counters for them. We can spruce the team up by replacing Scarlet Witch with someone else and it will serve well as a budget option, but don’t expect to get a lot of wins.

Alternatives

As alternatives, you can use Out Of Time or Gamma. They won’t do as well, but OOT have Barrier as additional protection, and Gamma mostly rely on the strength of Red Hulk.

Stage 6 -Dulom’s Destruction

On Defense and Offense, All characters:

• When using an Ultimate Ability, Generate 1 Ability Energy for each enemy.

This is an interesting stage, that will punish you for using Ultimate abilities because each time it will generate 1 Ability energy to your enemies. In most cases, if you can get the Speed advantage and can prevent your enemies from taking a single turn, it won’t matter how many times you used your Ultimate abilities. But if we use some of the strongest teams here, the ones enemies can’t defeat as easily, it can cause some chaos.

But this works both ways and as soon as your team starts using their Ultimates, the enemy will also gain energy.

Best Defense – Illuminati
Optimal Defense – X-Treme X-Men
Budget Defense – Out Of Time

Illuminati

Characters left-to-right:

• Captain Britain
• Black Bolt
• Black Panther (Shuri)
• Mister Fantastic
• Hank Pym

As the newest Crucible team, Illuminati will definitely require their opponents to rely on Ultiimates to defeat them, but in doing so the opponents will supply a lot of bonus energy to Illuminati, which can adversely affect your opponents. This will work both ways and once Illuminati start using their Ultimates, the opponent will also start gaining bonus ability energy, but as the newest team, Illuminati will have the advantage, provided they have a decent amount of Yellow/Red Stars.

X-Treme X-Men

Characters left-to-right:

• Sunspot
• Nightcrawler
• Gambit
• Cyclops
• Forge

X-Treme are overall a great team and if the enemy start using their Ultimates too often, X-Treme can respond with a lot of Damage. Nightcrawler’s Ultimate can be absolutely devastating, and his Special is on a very low cooldown so there may be situations when he uses it back-to-back. Forge’s Ultimate can also be very beneficial, but he has a long cooldown so if he’s not taken care of first, he may end up reviving an X-Treme ally promptly. To help with that, we can replace Sunspot or Cyclops (whoever is the smallest) with Rogue.

Out Of Time

Characters left-to-right:

• Captain Carter
• Cosmic Ghost Rider
• Starbrand
• Captain America
• Black Knight

Can also perform well here as a budget option for a few reasons. Firstly, Cosmic Ghost Rider will apply Barrier to his allies whenever an enemy uses the Ultimate ability, so that will provide bonus protection. Secondly, Captain Carter and Captain America have fairly low cooldowns on their abilities, which means that they can end up using Ultimates and Specials one after the other. In Carter’s case, it’s beneficial because her Ultimate can provide a mass heal and Special can Revive, and for Captain America, his Special will apply Taunt, keeping the enemy’s attention, and his Ult can fill his Speed Bar, allowing him to take even more turns. And, lastly, Black Knight will be able to use his Special much more often, which will allow him to gain even more Charged and counter more often than he normally would.

Alternatives

The alternatives for this Stage can include any of the powerful teams you may have in reserve, or you can craft a mashup team of characters with powerful Ultimates and protection, to help them survive long enough to use their abilities.

Conclusion

This new season (approx 7 weeks) allows for a new pattern to emerge, meaning that every time we get a new season, we will have a newly released team that will be highlighted. Sometimes it may end up being a Crucible-centric team, like Illuminati for this season. And other times it just can be any strong newly released team.

Another good thing is that it looks like we will have a new Envoy Cosmic Crucible Tournament after each season, this can be a good way to learn the new rules (when the Stages work correctly) or have some fun. More importantly, the winner of the Tournament gets to pick Stage Rules for one Stage of the next Season.

Season 9 features such a Stage, from the winner of the first CC Envoy Tournament – Dulom. (click on the name to go to his YouTube channel). The winner of the second Envoy CC Tournament – DorkyDad will get to collaborate with the devs on the Stage Rules for Season 10, so if you have any good ideas make sure to go to his channel and leave a comment.

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