Marvel’s Midnight Suns features a star-studded cast with heroes from the Avengers, X-Men, Runaways, and more. With so many legends from across Marvel canon, it can be hard to choose which heroes you want to pit against the Mother of Demons and her army. There may also be some unfamiliar faces amongst the bunch. Learn how to pick the right team for the job with our character guide that explains each hero’s specialty.
The Hunter
Specialty: All-rounder
The Hunter is the only hero in Marvel’s Midnight Suns who can fill any role on the squad. Their deck can be customized to focus on damage, control, support, mitigation, or any combination you can think of. The Hunter’s abilities follow three branches: Light, Dark, and Power. Light abilities are more supportive, focused more on healing and generating heroism. Dark abilities deal a lot of damage at the cost of health and cards. Power abilities, meanwhile, balance offense and defense for a balanced approach.
Also, the Hunter has two passive abilities: “Collars” and “Suits.” Collars will grant you abilities as you play cards from a certain branch (Light or Dark), with the abilities are more effective the more branch cards you’re using. Suits gives you a passive ability as you unlock more combat suits during your playthrough. Note, you can choose which passive to use no matter which suit you’re wearing.
Since the Hunter can be tailored to any role, they’ll work in any squad. Build your favorite Hunter deck, and surround them with heroes who will fill in your weaknesses.
Doctor Strange
Specialty: Support
Doctor Strange is a support hero whose abilities focus around heroism — gained by playing Attack and Skill cards. As you gain more heroism, his abilities will become enhanced. His cards will upgrade to a stronger version that comes with extra effects or damage. Since his enhanced abilities require a lot of heroism, you’ll need a hero that produces a lot of heroism, which Doctor Strange can also do. His passive ability, “Greater Good,” has a chance to generate heroism at the start of every turn, and his cards are great at building up heroism.
Although his abilities focus around heroism, that’s not everything that Doctor Strange is capable of. He can increase your card plays, draw cards, and offers a variety of buffs like mitigation and stealth. Doctor Strange will work in any team, but will find the most use in teams that require high heroism generation.
Blade
Specialty: Damage
Blade’s priority on a mission is to make his opponents bleed and drain their lifeforce over time. As a Dhampir (half-man, half-vampire), his abilities focus around bleeding, which will make enemies take damage over time. Bleeding works in tandem with his other specialty, the self-explanatory lifesteal. Blade will be able to consistently damage foes and heal himself as the fight prolongs.
As a damage dealer, Blade lacks a lot of support and control abilities. If you decide to send Blade out on a mission, bring a support character who can buff his damage output and cover for his weaknesses.
Captain Marvel
Specialty: Damage/Tank
Captain Marvel specializes as a damage dealer because of her binary state, Captain Marvel’s unique ability. After using the “Go Binary” card, Captain Marvel’s damage output doubles and she gains a lot of block. She’ll lose her binary state once her block reaches zero, but she has a lot of abilities that build up mitigation, which will prolong her damage boost. Captain Marvel also acts as a tank due to how much block she can generate, alongside her ability to taunt enemies.
Captain Marvel is capable of dealing a ton of damage, but she needs the right team around her to reach her full potential. Surround her with supportive allies that can provide more block and heroism generation to extend her binary state.
Iron Man
Specialty: Utility
Iron Man’s cards are all about redraws. Cards with the “Redraw to Upgrade” effect won’t be discarded as you draw them; instead, they’ll evolve into a stronger version. The downside to this is that redraws will be used mostly for Iron Man, which can leave your hand full of cards that you won’t be able to play. Iron Man’s passive ability, “I’ll Handle This,” allows him to create redraws for his own use. This’ll help you manage your hand, and replace some cards with others that have more of an immediate effect.
Iron Man works well in most squads, but his best allies are those that grant even more redraws for him to use. We find that his most suited partner is not a hero, but any combat item that generates redraws.
Nico Minoru
Specialty: Support/Damage
Many of Nico Minoru’s abilities utilize roulette, which adds a bit of randomness to her playstyle. The effects of roulette cards are unknown until they’re drawn, but that uncertainty is balanced by the strength of her abilities. Nico is great at debuffing enemies, generating heroism, and drawing cards. She also has some of the highest damage-dealing abilities in the game, but they often target random foes. The trick? Reduce the random factor by using her abilities after you’ve whittled down the field of potential targets.
Nico is a terrific support characters for teams that rely on generating heroism. Her ability to reduce heroism costs down to zero works great for heroes like Captain Marvel and Ghost Rider.
Ghost Rider
Specialty: Damage
The goal for Ghost Rider is to eliminate as many adversaries as fast as possible. His souls meter will fill up with each kill and, when full, boost his maximum health. Many of his abilities will cost some health or cards in exchange, so the extra health is a welcome bonus. When the souls meter is maxed out, you’ll automatically get a “Drain Souls” ability, which gains power the more you use it. Ghost Rider wants to get KOs early to stack his bonus health and Drain Souls ability.
With each use of Drain Souls, the heroism cost goes up by one, so pair Ghost Rider with a support who is great at building up heroism (and healing).
Magik
Specialty: Control
Magik is the best control hero in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. With her portal ability, you can move enemies anywhere on the battlefield, and position them for the perfect follow up attack from your allies. Because you only have one move per turn, positioning the enemies so that your heroes don’t have to move to line them up is an extremely efficient tactic. You’ll save your valuable move to be used for environmental attacks, which she excels at.
Magik fits well in any team, but works best with a hero with area-of-effect (AOE) abilities. Gather your enemies into one spot, then hit them with an AOE move to quickly take them out.
Spider-Man
Specialty: Distributed Damage
The web-slinging superhero Spider-Man joins the team after the story mission “Spidermaaaans” in act one. His play style concentrates on defeating enemies without using card plays or heroism. Many of Spider-Man’s abilities have quick, which refunds your card play if you KO someone, while his passive ability, “Bring the House Down,” can refund the heroism cost of his environmental attacks.
Spider-Man excels at taking out minions or low health enemies, but struggles at defeating high health targets. If you have Spider-Man on your team, make sure to bring a hero who thrives at dealing a lot of damage to a single target.
Captain America
Specialty: Tank/Damage
Captain America offers his assistance after the story mission “Some Assembly Required” in act one. Cap is one of the premier tanks in Marvel’s Midnight Suns because he can generate large amounts of block and draw the attention of enemies by taunting them. He can also convert some of his block into damage, giving him some of the highest damage-dealing abilities. All this said, it’s easy to take on more than you can handle.
Some of Captain America’s greatest synergies include heroes who can give him even more block — like Iron Man and Doctor Strange — or heroes that play best dishing out as much damage as possible without having to worry about their enemies.
Wolverine
Specialty: Tank/Distributed Damage
Wolverine is available for missions after the story mission “The Changing Face of Evil” in act two. Wolverine is a self-sustaining tank, able to taunt multiple enemies and heal himself through lifesteal. He is great at spreading damage across many targets, but can also deal high single-target damage because of the Full Combo effect, which causes his chain abilities — attacks that can be spread out to multiple targets or the same target multiple times — to do an additional effect when used on a single target.
Wolverine’s passive, “Healing Factor,” restores some of his health whenever his cards are redrawn, so make sure to bring combat items that provide extra redraws. He also works well with allies that buff attacks because of his chain abilities.
Scarlet Witch
Specialty: AOE Damage
Scarlet Witch arrives at the Abbey after the story mission “Skin Deep” in act two. Scarlet Witch is a ranged AOE damage dealer who thrives in the middle of a fight. Many of her abilities literally use her as the center point of a team, so she’ll need to be positioned in between her enemies for best effect. Her passive ability, “Wrong Place, Wrong Time,” also wants you to get up close and personal because it can apply negative status effects to nearby enemies.
Scarlet Witch’s favorite partners involve those who can generate extra moves, which allows her to efficiently use her abilities. She’ll also need a hero that has high single-target damage because she isn’t as effective against enemies with high health pools.
The post Every hero in Marvel’s Midnight Suns and what they do appeared first on Polygon.
