Cosmic Crucible – Defensive Setup (Season 7)

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 7

Season 7 will have approximately the same duration as Season 6, meaning it’s a short season. Similar to Season 6, we won’t have our Ranks dropped after Season 7. As is common at this point, we have new Global Rules and new Stage Rules. Defensive teams can still be Exhausted, so there will be a solution against most of the defenses.

Global Rules for this season will center on Cabal characters, while the Stage Rules will feature the return of Raid On Crucible Stage, where the Stage counts as a Raid, fully unlocking the kits of Raid teams. Stages 1 & 4 also have fairly interesting Rules, so we could encounter some entertaining combinations there this season.

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 [instead of Cyclops]
• Stage 2 – Bifrost
• Stage 3 – Superior Six
• Stage 4 – Super Skrull + Doctor Doom + Dormammu + Vulture + Black Knight
• Stage 5 – Infinity Watch [or] Darkhold
• Stage 6 – Secret Defenders variations

Offense Heavy Setup:

• Stage 1 – X-Treme X-Men + Dormammu [instead of Gambit]
• Stage 2 – P.E.G.A.S.U.S.
• Stage 3 – Unlimited X-Men + Bishop/Phoenix (instead of Sunfire)
• Stage 4 – Black Order [or] Gamma
• Stage 5 – Infinity Watch
• Stage 6 – Out Of Time [or] Darkhold

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 – 54 Million; League – Platinum II (Current) :

• Stage 1: X-Treme X-Men + Rogue (instead of Cyclops) – 2 mil
• Stage 2: P.E.G.A.S.U.S. (2,1 mil)
• Stage 3: Captain Carter, Captain America, Starbrand, Quicksilver, Winter Soldier (1,7 mil)
• Stage 4: Black Knight, Super Skrull, Doctor Doom, Dormammu, Vulture (2,1 mil)
• Stage 5: Infinity Watch (1 mil)
• Stage 6: Secret Defenders + Cosmic Ghost Rider + Spider-Man Noir (instead of Strange and Photon) – 2,1 mil

Teams that will carry out the Offense are:

• Superior Six (2 mil)
• Masters of Evil (1.7 mil)
• New Warriors (1,6 mil)
• Bifrost (1,7 mil)
• Hive-Mind (1,3 mil)
• Knowhere (1,8 mil)
• Gamma (1,7 mil)
• Darkhold (1,5 mil)
• Death Seed (1,45 mil)
• Invaders (1,25 mil)
• New Avengers (1,2 mil)
• War Dogs (1 mil)
• Black Order (1 mil)
• Undying (3 of them) (530K)
• Plug-and-play characters: Apocalypse (728K), Ikaris and Sersi (770K), Weaver and 2099 (700K), Omega Red (392)

Kana(alt); Level 100; TCP – 41 Million; Platinum I (Current) :

• Stage 1: X-Treme X-Men + Dormammu (instead of Sunspot) – 2 mil
• Stage 2: P.E.G.A.S.U.S. – 2 mil
• Stage 3: Unlimited X-Men + Phoenix + Quicksilver (instead of Gambit and Sunfire) – 1,6 mil
• Stage 4: Black Order – 1,2 mil
• Stage 5: Darkhold + Nick Fury (instead of Heartless) – 1,4 mil
• Stage 6: Out Of Time (1,4 mil)

Teams that will carry out the Offense are:

• Secret Defenders (2 mil)
• Masters of Evil (1.2 mil)
• Superior Six (2,1 mil)
• New Warriors (1 mil)
• Death Seed (1.25 mil)
• Bifrost (1.5 mil)
• Hive-Mind (1,5 mil)
• Eternals (2 of them) (520k)
• Undying Trio (600K)
• Tangled Web (Weaver and 2099) (620K)
• Plug-and-play characters: Apocalypse (768K), Super Skrull (555K), Quicksilver (448K) Doctor Doom (190K), Nova (412K), Emma Frost (101K)

Global Effects – Cabal Rules

Cabal Characters:

• With Vulnerable, on successful hit, apply +1 Vulnerable (up to 5 max)
• When below 25% Max Health, gain +200% extra Damage and lower Armor by 50%

Villain Characters:

• On Turn, if this character has any Cabal allies, Barrier self for 10% of this character’s Max Health

On Defense, all Characters:

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

The boost from the Global Rules allows Cabal to be used even more effectively. It opens up the possibility of using different Iso comps for Cabal, seeing as they will not need Raiders or Skirmishers as much. This also makes them far more dangerous if they fall below 25% Max Health, which might not be uncommon because Cabal are somewhat slow and they usually get hit a few times before they take their first turn.

Barrier on Turn for Villain characters won’t be as important since that will only work when we use Villains with Cabal characters, but this does end up being beneficial for Cabal, making them slightly better.

And, as per usual, all Defensive teams get small boosts to their Health and Damage. And will receive Exhaust on subsequent attacks

Stage 1 – Full House

Stage Effects:

On Defense and Offense:

• Striker characters with Ability Block – gain +50% Damage.
• 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 successful attack, apply Ability Block.

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 his 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 and hits multiple targets, you can equip him with a Skirmisher Iso, and his attack will apply Ability Block to everyone he hits. 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. And lastly, Strikers with Ability Block on them will gain bonus damage. Considering that normally the damage dealers are also Strikers, this can also cause some chaos.

The best teams to use here would be the ones who pose the most danger if you can’t control a key target early on.

Best & Optimal Defense – X-Treme X-Men (or variations)
Budget Defense – Gamma with Spider-Man (Big Time)

X-Treme X-Men+

Characters left-to-right:

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

It can be the full X-Treme or a mix, you could replace Sunspot with Rogue or Dormammu. Or you could even drop Sunspot and Cyclops and use Dormammu and Rogue

X-Treme X-Men are a dangerous team under any circumstances, 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 Cyclops or Sunspot), she should also be a Raider for the same reason. You could even use the full X-Treme team here with Dormammu instead of Gambit, allowing you to use the Unlimited X-Mean team in another room.

Nightcrawler is also very fast, so we can use him as a Skirmisher, which will allow him to apply a bunch of Ability Blocks early on.

While they won’t be unbeatable, this will severely limit the teams that can counter them, forcing the use of Superior Six or Cabal. And if your opponent tries something else you will almost certainly get a win.

Gamma+

Characters left-to-right:

• Brawn (Iso – Skirmisher)
• Abomination/Dormammu (Iso – Raider)/ Spider-Man (Big Time) – Iso Skirmisher
• She-Hulk (Iso – Skirmisher)
• Red Hulk (Iso – Raider/Striker)
• Hulk (Iso – Striker)

Gamma can cause some issues in this room, mainly because Red Hulk is fast and if you have him as a Skirmisher, he will apply Ability Blocks to at least 2-3 targets early on. On the other hand, Red Hulk is better as a Striker or Raider overall, so we could replace Abomination with Spider-Man (Big Time) and use Bit Time as a Skirmisher. Big Time Spawns with Speed Up, so he often is the first to take a turn, and when he does, he uses his Ultimate attack which hits all enemies, meaning that after Big Time takes his first turn, all enemies will have Ability Block applied to them.

Countering this won’t be too hard, you’ll just need to make sure your essential characters are Raiders, but if you forget to switch your Iso Classes you might be in trouble. That’s the goal of this defense

Infinity Watch

Characters left-to-right:

• Moondragon (Iso – Raider)
• Phyla-Vell (Iso – Raider)
• Gamora (Iso – Striker)
• Nebula (Iso – Skirmisher)
• Adam Warlock (Iso – Skirmisher)

Infinity Watch thanks to their On Spawn Safeguard and Immunity can also be very good in this room. Nebula also has Speed Up on Spawn and will use her Ultimate, which can chain to multiple targets and, as a skirmisher, she could apply plenty of Ability Blocks this way, while IW themselves will be protected for their first turn because of Immunity.

Alternatives

Infestation – A big Infestation team can also be good here because of Spider-Man (Big Time), just make sure that he’s a Skirmisher and he’ll be able to apply Ability Block to all enemies early on, which could mess with some counters.

Black Order – Thanos Spawns with 100% Speed Bar so he’ll take the first turn and his attack hits the primary and adjacent targets, which means that he can also Ability Block 2-3 Targets early on, which can be good for you, and very bad for your enemies.

New Avengers – NA are also fairly fast because they have increased Speed from Ronin’s Passive. Tigra will be able to get her first turn early on and will hit multiple targets, meaning she can be good as a Skirmisher. On her second turn, she’ll also hit all enemies again and will re-apply Ability Block to everyone.

Stage 2 – Raid On Crucible

On Defense and Offense:

• Room counts as a Raid
• Lower Resistance and Healing by 50%

This is a return appearance of this Stage. The last time we had this Stage we had a lot of issues countering Raid teams because of their incredibly high Resistance, and to combat that developers added the Resistance and Healing reduction. Keep in mind, that this will affect both teams, the one defending and the one attacking.

The best team to use here would be a Raid team of the Incursion Raids Era (Bifrost, X-Treme X-Men, P.E.G.A.S.U.S., Hive-Mind, and soon-to-be-released Spider-Society) We may also see some Tangled Web/Spider-Society mixed team, at least until the full Spider-Society is out.

Best Defense – Bifrost
Optimal Defense – P.E.G.A.S.U.S.
Budget Defense – Rebirth or Invaders

Bifrost

Characters left-to-right:

• Loki (Teen)
• Sylvie
• Vahl
• Loki
• Beta Ray Bill

Bifrost was the team to use here last time we had this Stage, and this seems to be the case again. Especially now that more players have massive Bifrost teams. This team has an insanely big Speed Bar rewind early on from Sylvie, and they have a ton of positive effects on Spawn, including Immunity. Vahl can deal some massive damage, as well as is capable of Reviving the entire team if Vahl is allowed to use their Ultimate ability. This team caused a lot of headaches and will likely do it again. However, the reduced resistance should help make it easier to counter them.

P.E.G.A.S.U.S.

Characters left-to-right:

• Rescue
• Iron Man (Infinity War)
• Kestrel
• Darkhawk
• Ironheart (MK II)

P.E.G.A.S.U.S. is another great option for this room, they start with a massive Speed Bar advantage, gaining +75% of Speed Bar on Spawn from Ironheart’s Passive. She also provides them with Ability Energy, which allows them to start with their Ultimate Abilities. Darkhawk’s Ultimate will be especially devastating since it will rewind the Speed Bar of the opposing team. On top of that, P.E.G.A.S.U.S. will keep up the pressure by dealing a lot of damage and Kestrel can outright eliminate the entire enemy team with her passive pings. Rescue will also apply Speed Up to all her allies early on, and will be able to almost instantly Revive a fallen ally.

Hive-Mind

Characters left-to-right:

• Void Knight
• Gwenom
• Venom
• Carnage
• Red Goblin

Hive-Mind’s biggest strength in Raids is Void Knight. He Spawns with +25% Speed Bar and applies Speed Up to himself and his team. This allows him to take his first turn early on and use his Ultimate, which will flip 3 positive effects and will apply Ability Block to everyone. After that, the only task is to start hitting targets with low health, which will trigger Carnage’s Passive and that will start generating Speed Bar for Hive-Mind. All of that makes this team fairly devastating.

X-Treme X-Men

Characters left-to-right:

• Sunspot
• Nightcrawler
• Gambit
• Cyclops
• Forge

X-Treme Spawn with a more modest +25% Speed Bar, compared to the previous recommendations. They instead rely on Nightcrawler, who Spawns with Speed Up and can fill the Speed Bar of his allies with his Special Ability. X-Treme will gain more damage with the Raid bonuses active and can have Safeguard early on from Forge. They will be even more dangerous than normal, but the fact is that they don’t need the Raid bonuses to be a dangerous team. Which allows us to use them in Stage 1 for example.

Alternatives

As alternatives, you could essentially use any of the older Raid teams, just don’t expect a lot from them.

Rebirth – might still be able to hold their ground, especially because both Captains recently had a little rework and have improved stats. They are slow, but if you allow Carter to take her turn, she’ll apply Safeguard, and soon after that Cap America will Taunt. And while you might still win, they will eat away at your efficiency. The only issue is that you won’t be able to use the full Out Of Time team elsewhere, but Black Knight can be dangerous as a plug-and-play anyway.

Invaders – if you don’t have anything better for this Stage, you could use Invaders. Their main issue is that AI will start the fight with Fury’s Ultimate Ability, which will summon minions, instead of using his Special to apply Speed Up to his allies. This makes them very weak against Eternals. But it’s still better instead of using even older teams like Bionic Avengers or Web-Warriors. At this point, you could consider ignoring the Stage rules and just using any strong team you have left here.

Another good option a few weeks into the season might be Spider-Society once we have them all unlocked. Until then, you could also use a mashup team – Weaver/Noir/Ghost-Spider/2099/Peter B. Parker. This team will have an interesting mix of Raid and Crucible synergy and might be able to throw off an inexperienced opponent, but ultimately won’t be too hard to defeat just by using normal counters to Tangled Web.

Stage 3 – Aggroed

On Defense and Offense, all characters:

• On Turn, if this character has Taunt, gain Offense Up.
• On Turn, apply Assist Now to all allies with Offense Up.

Any team that has Offense Up on Spawn can be a good Defensive option here, or a team that has a pre-Taunt character, which will apply Offense UP to all your allies and will allow them to Assist on each turn. We had a similar room in one of the previous Seasons and it can take you by surprise if you’re not prepared.

Best Defense
Optimal Defense
Budget Defense

Superior Six+

Characters left-to-right:

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

Superior Six are incredibly strong in Crucible, and they also will Spawn with Safeguard and Offense Up, which will be perfect for this room, because characters with Offense Up gain Assist on each turn, and this will force all Superior Characters to assist after each turn. While the Offense Up on Spawn they gain is just for 1 Turn, Slayer can apply additional Offense Up on his second turn (or first if there are any Spider-Verse enemies). Lizard on his first turn will also gain Taunt, which should re-apply Offense Up to his allies.

It needs to be said, that Superior Six should be left for Offense if you don’t have enough Offensive teams and you want to climb up to a new League.

X-Treme X-Men+

Characters left-to-right:

• Sunspot
• Nightcrawler
• Gambit
• Cyclops/Rogue
• Forge

X-Treme characters also gain Offense Up on Spawn, and since Nightcrawler is fairly fast, he might end up going first and everyone else will Assist him, which can do some serious damage to your enemies. You can also use Rogue instead of Cyclops here because once she Taunts it’ll trigger the room rules which will apply another Offense Up.

Out Of Time

Characters left-to-right:

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

Black Knight will Spawn with Taunt, which should trigger the room rules and also apply Offense Up, the team overall will also have Immunity and will gain Barrier each time enemies use their Ultimate Abilities, so they will be pretty good on Defense, especially when we also consider Black Knight’s counters. That said, Black Knight is very valuable as a plug-and-play and can be used elsewhere.

Secret Defenders

Characters left-to-right:

• Photon
• Ghost Rider (Robbie)
• Doctor Strange/Super Skrull/Apocalypse
• Black Cat
• Ms. Marvel (Hard Light)

Ms.Marvel gains Speed Bar on spawn and on her first turn she will Taunt, so SD will end up having Offense Up early on. This will make them even more dangerous. Chain hits from Black Cat and attacks and Bleeds from Ghost Rider can become devastating. That said, Secret Defenders might be better in room 6 this season.

Unlimited X-Men+

Characters left-to-right:

• Rogue
• Fantomex
• Gambit
• Sunfire
• Dazzler

A more budget option would be using full Unlimited here, or you could also replace Sunfire with a pre-Taunt character, which will trigger the room rules faster and will apply Offense Up to characters. Unlimited characters also have boosts in Crucible, such as Safeguard, and won’t be as easy to eliminate as other older teams.

Alternatives

New Avengers – Due to Tigra being relatively fast, she will take her turn early on and gain Taunt. after which her allies will gain Offense Up due to room rules and will start Assisting each other.

Rebirth – won’t have Taunt on Spawn, but as soon as Captain America gets hit, Winter Soldier will apply Offense Up to all Rebirth allies, allowing them to Assist each turn.

War Dogs – They don’t have Taunt or Offense Up on Spawn, but they can gain it very soon from Black Panther’s Special attack, and since they are naturally pretty fast because of the On Spawn Speed up, they can end up taking a lot of turns and once they all have Offense Up and start Assisting each other they can pose a threat.

Young Avengers – Gain Offense Up on Spawn from Kate Bishop, Ms. Marvel will also Taunt occasionally but as a whole, they are not as dangerous nowadays, at least not in the higher leagues.

Stage 4 – Unstable Energy

On Defense and Offense, Villain Characters:

• Ultimate Abilities cost 2 less Ability Energy
• Lower Max Health by 25%

The best team for this Stage would be either a team fully made out of Villain characters or a mixed team with strong Villains. We may also end up seeing Dark Dimension characters in this room quite often, such as Super Skrull, Doctor Doom, and Dormammu, because they will be able to use their Ultimates on their first Turn. The upside to all of that is that Villains will have their Health lowered in this room, which should make it slightly easier to counter them.

Best Defense – Super Skrull, Doctor Doom, Vulture, Dormammu, Black Knight [or] Superior Six with Vulture instead of Spider-Slayer
Optimal Defense – Super Skrull, Doctor Doom, Vulture +2
Budget Defense – Black Order

Superior Six with Vulture (instead of Spider-Slayer)

Characters left-to-right:

• Vulture
• Kraven The Hunter
• Green Goblin (Classic)
• Doctor Octopus
• Lizard

Because of the room rules, Vulture will start the fight with his Ultimate, which has a mass turn rewind. After that, Green Goblin will use his Ultimate, which rewinds the enemy Speed Bar as well, and then Lizard will come in with his Ultimate, and will gain a bunch of positive effects, which he then will spread to all of his allies. That will be a potent start to the battle and it can often decide, who gets to win.

Kraven and Doc Oc have a bit of a disadvantage in this room because they will start the battle with their Ultimates, which is not great since we want Doc to summon ASAP, and Kraven to gain more Charged before he does his Ultimate. The team will also have less Max Health here so countering them should be somewhat easier, but not necessarily simple to do.

Super Skrull Mythic team

Characters left-to-right:

• Vulture
• Doctor Doom
• Super Skrull
• Dormammu
• Black Knight

The focus of this team is to get Doom to use his Ultimate, which will grant Super Skrull +300% Speed Bar. Dormammu is there for his Revive, just in case Doom dies from Chain or Area-of-effect damage. Black Knight is there to protect and prevent from rewinding Skrull or applying Ability Block to Doom. Vulture is there to give you even more advantage on Spawn because he will start with his Ultimate, which will rewind all enemies.

Overall, this team might be a little bit overkill. You could use Dormammu on defense elsewhere, and replace him with Thanos, placed next to Skrull. This way he will feed energy to Skrull when enemies die, which will allow him to use his Ultimate again very soon. And you could also use another pre-Taunt instead of Black Knight (Zombie Juggernaut, Bishop, Drax, etc). It all depends on your roster, whether you can have one strong defensive team or a couple of good ones. Also, make sure you have teams left for offense.

Black Order

Characters left-to-right:

• Proxima Midnight
• Corvus Glaive
• Thanos
• Ebony Maw
• Cull Obsidian

Black Order have some dangerous Ultimate Abilities, so they can function very well in this room too. Thanos and Maw Ultimate attacks are especially dangerous because they can rewind enemy Speed Bar while healing themselves at the same time.

You could strengthen the team by replacing Cull or Corvus with Vulture. Vulture will start with his Ultimate and will rewind the enemy team, which will give Black Order even more time to use their Abilities and wreck havoc.

While Thanos gains +100% Speed Bar on Spawn, he will still start with his Basic attack and will use his Ultimate on his second turn, which won’t take too long since he also has Speed Up on Spawn. A strong Black Order team might surprise your opponents a few times, but ultimately it will just help by eating off some efficiency points.

Cabal

Characters left-to-right:

• Namor
• The Leader
• Iron Patriot

Although the recommendation is to keep them on offense, you can use Cabal on defense too since their kits have no offense/defense limitations. Because this team is still new there are not a lot of available counters for it, and since they are all Villains they will fit well in this room.

As the fourth and fifth you could take other strong Villain characters, like Doctor Doom, Morgan Le Fay, Dormammu, Hela, Omega Red, Taskmaster, etc.

Alternatives

There are not a lot of alternatives if you intend to use a full team of Villains, you could make a Symbiote team using Carnage, Red Goblin, and Venom + 2 other Symbiotes, but it’s likely better to leave full Hive-Mind as an option for Offense since they mind be a good choice to counter some teams in room 2 this season. Underworld are another fully Villain team, but they have their Ultimates ready anyway and this room will only lower their Health, making them easier to defeat. Undying could be used here but again, they won’t gain a lot from the room rules.

Because of that, if you don’t have any of the main options, it is best to ignore the room rules and just use any strong team you have left. Gamma, Darkhold, Infinity Watch, etc.

Stage 5 – Flash Bang

On Defense and Offense:

• If a character has Blind applied to them, lower that character’s Speed by 5% and Armor by 25%.
• Ultimate Abilities apply Blind to the primary target.

For this Stage, a good defensive team could be the one that starts fast and uses Ultimate Abilities early on. This way they will apply Blinds, which will lower the Speed and the Armor, making the enemy team more susceptible to damage. There can be an issue here since AI will control your defensive team, and you won’t have control over who’s the primary target. This can sometimes lead to Blind being applied to the same character which won’t be a good use of the room rules.

One option would be to apply Blind to all enemies at once by using Death Seed. But that team can be easily countered. We can also defer this room to Infinity Watch since they Spawn with Immunity they won’t be affected by Blinds early on.

Best Defense – Infinity Watch
Optimal Defense – Darkhold
Budget Defense – Infestation/War Dogs

Infinity Watch

Characters left-to-right:

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

If you haven’t used Infinity Watch anywhere yet, this can be a decent room for them. They will have Immunity on Spawn, so won’t be affected by Blinds, at least not immediately. Nebula will also start with her Ultimate, which will apply a Blind, and by the time they lose their Immunity and Safeguard the other IW members will be ready to start using their Ultimate Abilities and that will just apply even more Blinds. Infinity Watch isn’t necessarily a tough team to get around, they are mostly on defense to eat away at your efficiency points, and this room will help them do that better.

Darkhold

Characters left-to-right:

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

Darkhold have most of their Ultimate abilities ready so they will start with them, applying a bunch of negative effects on top of Blind. The only issue is that you can’t control who they pick as a primary target, which means that they might focus on the same target and just keep applying Blind to them, which is not the best way to use the room rules.

Infestation

Characters left-to-right:

• Ant-Man
• Swarm
• Spider-Man (Big Time)
• Black Widow
• Yellow Jacket

Big Time is fast and will take his turn early on, which will be an Ultimate attack, so he will apply Blind to one target. After Black Widow uses her Special to Speed Up the team, the other characters will also use their Ultimate attacks, which could add a couple more Blinds.

As long as the team is built up high, they can do a good enough job here of slowing your opponent down. But they are average still, so don’t expect too much from them.

War Dogs

Characters left-to-right:

• Shuri
• Black Panther
• Okoye
• Black Panther (1MM)
• Nakia

War Dogs will start with just one Ultimate ability, from 1MM, but because they have Speed Up on Spawn, they often get to take 2 (sometimes more) turns before everyone else, so they have a good chance to apply a lot of Blinds. And because of their Speed advantage, getting Blinds on enemies and slowing them down due to room rules will be even more beneficial for War Dogs.

That said, most of the standard counters should still function, so this team should be used here only if you want to be very heavy on the Offense.

Alternatives

Death Seed – Can be considered here, because they apply mass Blind on their first turn so they will use the room rules to the fullest extent, but they are easy enough to defeat and might be more valuable on the offense this season

Additionally, you could just use any decently built team here, like Gamma, New Avengers, etc

Stage 6 – Crossroads

On Defense and Offense:

• On Crit, apply Bleed to the primary target.
• If Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider (Robbie), or Cosmic Ghost Rider is an ally, and if character has Bleed, gain +20% additional Armor

Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider (Robbie), and Cosmic Ghost Rider:

• Apply +20% Crit Chance to allies.

Ghost Riders are key members for this room so the teams that will be good on defense are ones that have Ghost Riders, like Out Of Time and Secret Defenders. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be so restrictive, we could also just use any decent teams that are fast and have Raiders, as long as we include a Ghost Rider with them.

Best Defense – Secret Defenders + Super Skrull
Optimal Defense – Out Of Time

Secret Defenders+

Characters left-to-right:

• Photon
• Ghost Rider (Robbie)
• Doctor Strange/Super Skrull/Cosmic Ghost Rider/Spider-Man (Noir)
• Black Cat
• Ms. Marvel (Hard Light)

Secret Defenders are a natural fit for this room because one of their members is Ghost Rider. (Robbie), and because of the room rules, he will provide his team with bonus Crit chance, and on each Crit, that attack will also apply Bleed to the primary target. Robbie gains bonus Speed Bar when an ally applies Bleed to an enemy, which means that in this room he will get to take turns even more often. To help with that, you could also swap some characters Iso Classes to make them Raiders (which will increase Crit chance even more) Photon and Ms.Marvel can be Raiders, while Black Cat – Striker.

You could also replace Doctor Strange and use Super Skrull here, strengthening the defense even more. If Skrull is otherwise preoccupied, Strange can be replaced with Cosmic Ghost Rider (as long as you’re not using Oot Of Time anywhere else). He will add even more Crit chance, which means that you won’t need to switch Iso Classes. Spider-Man (Noir) can also be a good fit, instead of Strange, since he’s a natural Raider, will take turns often and his damage is fairly good.

Out Of Time

Characters left-to-right:

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

Similar to the previous option, Out Of Time will be a natural fit here thanks to Cosmic Ghost Rider. But the main character will still be Black Knight, his counterattacks will be responsible for the majority of the damage. Black Knight and Captain America will both answer for defense, while Carter will support and heal them.

Compared to the other team, this one won’t get as much use out of the room rules, because additional Bleed doesn’t feed the Speed Bar of this Ghost Rider, so the only real advantage would be from increased Crit Chance, and the damage that Bleeds cause themselves.

Alternatives

Most of the alternatives in this room would include variations on Out Of Time and Secret Defenders. Other than that, you could use any strong team here that you have left.

Conclusion

Season 7 will be shorter than previous seasons (approx 49 Days) and because of that, there will be no adjustments for Player Ranks when Season 7 ends so this is a good chance to climb as high as you can.

While the Global Rules will certainly favor Cabal and can allow for some experimentation with their Iso Classes, this won’t be as impactful as the rules of the previous season.

Stage Rules have some interesting things going on for them. The return of the Raid On Crucible room is one such thing, last time that room was fairly divisive due to the difficulty, that’s why this time it lowers the Resistance of the Raid teams a little, hopefully, that will be enough. Spider-Society’s release certainly factored in the return of the Raid room, and midway through the season, they might become the best team for that room.

We will keep a close eye on Defensive trends and what works best for each room and will update this page when we find anything better.

We hope that our Defensive recommendation will serve you well and that Season 7 of Cosmic Crucible will be challenging but also fulfilling!

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