Team Clash Strategy Guide

Win at Team Clash!

Want to make the most of Team Clash and have a sky-high win rate? You’re going to need to modify those pre-constructed decks, and, because of the way the missions are structured, you’re going to need to be able to play, and win, with each of the teams.  I’ll share my thoughts on each team and how to succeed in Team Clash.

Maximize your Progress

Before we get to the decks and replacements, let's talk about how to get the most out of this mode.

Wins give 10 XP and Emblems, while losses give 5 of each. Critically, wins give your Ticket back, like in Sanctum Showdown, so win rate matters and you can count on players sweating out the mode because of it. 

For the first time, we have Missions AND Tickets, which will complicate things (for more on the Economic side of Team Clash, check out Lauren's full Economy Guide).

The Ultimate Guide to the Team Clash Economy

Hey, y’all! Lauren here and excited about my first article on Fourth Location! My dream is that this ends up sitting in the sweet spot between how verbose I got on Marvel Snap Zone and how restrictive Twitter’s format felt (retrospective note: I probably went too long. 😅). Our

Fourth LocationLaurenWhatevs

There is one critical characteristic of missions. They reward playing and winning with each team. This means you will need to be proficient with all of the teams and have a go-to build for all 5. Unlike past LGTMs you won’t be able to just find a comfortable pick that works and just jam game after game with it. It will be especially important for free-to-play players to prioritize completing missions in order to earn both cards.

The Clashing Teams

Avengers: Go Tall in Two Lanes

Avengers: After you play an Avenger, give one of your Avengers there +1 Power. 

• Team Clash Hawkeye: On Reveal: If you play a card here next turn, +2 Power. If it's an Avenger, repeat this ability here.
• Team Clash Captain America: Ongoing: Your other Avengers here have +2 Power.
• Team Clash Doctor Strange: On Reveal: Move one of your Avengers with On Reveal to this location to repeat its ability.
• Team Clash Thor: On Reveal: Draw an Avenger, then shuffle Mjolnir into your deck.
• Team Clash Vision: If you have another Avenger here, you can move this.
• Team Clash Hulk: On Reveal: +3 Power for each other Avenger you have here.

The Avengers are built to go tall and organize power in winning locations. When thinking about how to modify the Avengers pre-con, you have a few different paths. The signposted play pattern is to use a small set of move synergies to increase how many Avengers bonuses you can stack into a lane, much like Angela, hence Jeff’s inclusion in the pre-con. Doctor Strange is one of the more interesting pieces, but the extended roster lacks targets for him. The most promising Synergies with Strange are Black Panther, Gwenpool, Hercules, Ironheart, Kahhori, Okoye, Shang Chi, Valkyrie, and Wiccan. It's an awkward situation, because much of the Avengers roster is Ongoing-heavy, which is a second potential direction. Captain Carter is a major key for this team, but there is also Ant-Man, Blue Marvel, Goliath, Ms. Marvel, and Sam Wilson that can all be buffed by Spectrum.

Deck Upgrades

The goal is simple: make one giant Captain Carter lane and one giant Hulk lane. You can choose how you want to try to leverage Doctor Strange, if at all. This deck adds Gwenpool as a potential target, but leans into Strange a lot less than the pre-con by replacing three of the On Reveals. A built focusing even more on Strange, instead of less, is also a possibility.

Power Avengers

Keep: Captain Carter, Jeff, Iron Man

As a Wiccan addict, Quicksilver and Wiccan immediately stuck out to me when scanning the extended roster. You could definitely consider Quake in place of Scarlet Witch if you're that kind of person, and Speed is a major consideration in this deck if you feel like you can afford to drop a 2-Cost or Carter for him.

Wiccan Avengers

Keep: Captain Carter

Last, I have a relatively all-in Ongoing deck. This gives you two potential point slam finishers in Spectrum or Hulk. Captain Carter vs. Speed vs. Ms. Marvel is a question of how you're choosing to attack the lanes.

Avengers Ongoing

Keep: Iron Man

Spider-Verse: The Top Contender

Spider-Verse: You get +2 Energy if one of your Spider-Verse cards moved last turn.

• Team Clash Ghost Spider: On Reveal: The last card you played moves here. If it's a Spider-Verse card, this gains +2 Power.
• Team Clash Agony: After you play a card here, merge this with it. If it's a Spider-Verse card, move it away from here.
• Team Clash Scarlet Spider: Activate: Add a clone with the same Power to another location, then move this to the third location.
• Team Clash Symbiote Spider-Man: Activate: Merge one of your cards here into this. Replace that card with a Spider-Verse card from your deck.
• Team Clash Anti-Venom: On Reveal: Set the Cost and Power of your deck's top card to 0 until that card moves.
• Team Clash Spider-Man 2099: On Reveal: For each time your cards moved this game, give +1 Power to one of your cards. (0 times)

Spider-Verse is the strongest pre-con, so you could always just spin it as is, but it's also a deck with one of the most obvious upgrades in Ezekiel Sims. You could definitely just take out Vulture for him and call it a day. I also like the idea of adding protection to this deck in the form of Cosmo, Juggernaut, or both — it's the frontrunner so any tech that players add to their deck will be targeting this specific deck.

Deck Upgrades:

You have to make a choice of which scalers you're going to prioritize. Here's a deck focused on Man-Spider:

Spider Focus

Keep: Silk, Man-Spider, Peni, Madame Web

And here on Move Scalers:

Scaler Focus

Keep: Kraven, Silk, Man-Spider

Thunderbolts: Comeback Potential

Thunderbolts: Your Thunderbolts reveal with +2 Power at locations you’re losing.

• Team Clash Valentina: On Reveal: Add a random Thunderbolt to your hand. Give it -1 Cost.
• Team Clash Toxie Doxie: On Reveal: Give 2 characters in your hand +2 Power. You can’t play them next turn unless they’re Thunderbolts.
• Team Clash Winter Soldier: You can only play this at a location you're losing.
• Team Clash Ghost: Costs 1 less for each location you're losing.
• Task Master: On Reveal: Gains Power equal to your other highest-Power Thunderbolt.
• Team Clash Sentry:On Reveal: Add a -9 Power Void to a location where you don't have a Thunderbolt.

The Thunderbolts are less focused on playing massive amounts of Thunderbolts and their mechanic is based on coming from behind, which adds up to the highest potential to include tech.

Deck Upgrades

You could simply replace all of the pre-con cards with a Thunderbolt-heavy Sera control package:

Thunder Control

I love the idea of leaning into the clog aspect of the pre-con. It just naturally works with the Thunderbolt's mechanic to clog one lane and then slam down a Red Hulk in a lane you're losing. I considered Annihilus, but didn't feel like there would be enough time to take advantage because of the curve this deck has. If you're skilled and experienced using Titania as a clog card, this deck will do really well for you.

Thunder Clog

Keep: Hood, Viper, Red Hulk

This team also has a lot of pieces that synergize with Victoria Hand. Kate Bishop is an underrated V. Hand card that allows us to maintain the small clog sub-theme. I chose not to include Iron Patriot in this build because, well, the Thunderbolts are all about being behind, not ahead. This deck is built to rain down power on the last turn, a key strength of this team.

Thunder Hand

Keep: Hood, Viper

If you want to lean further into Victoria Hand, you can try keeping only the Hood and trying to more closely mimic a ladder V. Hand deck with Misery, who is also quite good with Team Clash Valentina. 

Thunder Handier

Keep: Hood

Last, you can replace all 6 with an Affliction package. I like the concept of Evolved Abomination since it goes with the team's theme of big late turns, but you could also go with Ajax plus another affliction card like Silver Sable, Scorpion, or Diamondback instead.

Thunder Affliction

Guardians: Mind Games

Guardians of the Galaxy: ALL cards reveal with +1 Power at the glowing location.

• Team Clash Mantis: On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, give a Guardians in your hand -2 Cost.
• Team Clash Rocket Raccoon: On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, draw a Guardian and give it +2 Power.
• Team Clash Star Lord: On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, give +1 Power to your Guardians in hand and play.
• Team Clash Drax: On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, double this card's Power.
• Team Clash Groot: On Reveal: Discard a non-Guardian card from your hand unless your opponent played a card here this turn.
• Team Clash Gamora: On Reveal: If your opponent played a card here this turn, destroy their lowest-Cost card here.

The Guardians have a bit of a funky roster. Most of the cards that are best suited to the mechanic are already in the pre-con. There are powerful build-around cards on the extended roster, but the pieces that go with them aren't. Are we really going to build a Darkhawk deck or a Black Bolt/Stature deck? Or combine the two? It's possible. It's also interesting that this is the Team that has access to Cosmo, but wants him the least (her, if you're a movie fan). Sera is an inherently powerful card, so you could just replace the worst card with her (probably Bill) and roll with that.

Deck Upgrades

One fun direction to go is to lean into the free discard value Groot can provide:

Groot Upside

Keep: Nebula, Adam, Angela

The throwback combination of Black Bolt and Darkhawk:

Black Bolt/Darkhawk

Sera control

Keep: Gladiator, Angela

X-Men: Flood the Board

X-Men: You get +1 Energy for each location where you have 3 or more X-Men.

• Team Clash Nightcrawler: You can move this once. When this moves, give it +1 Power for each of your X-Men at the new location.
• Team Clash Wolverine: End of Turn: If you have unspent Energy, destroy this to regenerate it with +3 Power at a location where you have an X-Man.
• Team Clash Jean Grey: The next time you get bonus Energy as the turn starts, draw a card.
• Team Clash Cyclops: Ongoing: Gains Power equal to the most Energy you had in one turn this game.
• Team Clash Jubilee: On Reveal: Add the top card of your deck to this location. Give it Power equal to your unspent Energy.
• Team Clash Professor X: You get +1 Energy each turn for each of your X-Men here.

The X-Men are working a bit at… cross purposes. They want to flood the board early to get extra energy, but they have neither the cheap cards to do that, nor the expensive cards to take advantage of it on their extended roster. Looking at Jubilee and Cyclops, it's a deck that doesn't want you to just produce extra energy, it wants you to get A LOT of extra energy. We can add Psylocke, the only other X-Man that provides Energy, or we could try medium or high shenanigans with the Fallen One! Pixie and Surge could be considerations as they interact with Cost, which can help us have extra Energy.

Deck Upgrades

I love Jim Hammond and think he's a massively underrated card. He works really well with Hope Summers. Kitty is an obvious inclusion with Hope and also lowers the curve. I considered putting the Fallen One in even without extra synergy, but think Wiccan, even if you don't pull off him every game, is a better fit – there are plenty of 1 and 2-Cost cards as well as Kitty's modality, but you could add Domino as a security blanket.

Big Jim

Keep: Sunspot, Jim Hammond, Hope, Magneto

Ok, time for the full Fallen One shenanigans deck. Let's make a big ol’ Scott Summers! Silver Surfer, Shuri, Fallen One is the combo here. You could also consider Psylocke, Forge, or Symbiote Spider-Man.

Fallen One

Keep: Sunspot, Jim Hammond

Beyond Jim Hammond and Fallen One, I'm not too excited about what else we can do with the X-Men, but I think it's possible to have a little Turn 6 Destroy sub-theme. There are also possibilities with Jocasta given Danger and Omega Sentinel are X-Men. What's tricky, though, is the X-Men mechanic demands you use mostly X-Men, so they're not as flexible as Teams like the Guardians or Thunderbolts, despite the more powerful mechanic.

X-Destroy

Keep: Sunspot, Jim Hammond

General Strategy and Tips

I think it's pretty widely agreed that the best team, both pre-con and for use as a custom deck, is the Spider-Verse deck. Its mechanic of easily added Energy makes it very formidable, especially when compared to the poor X-Men whose whole thing is supposed to be additional Energy. After digging through the decks, play lines, extended rosters, and theory-crafting, I have a handle on what kind of tech people may want to add to their decks and what the most common problems your deck will need to solve are. If Spider-Verse truly does shake out as the best team, Shadow King will become a mode staple and a decent percentage of players will reach for Shang Chi. In response, I expect Cosmo and/or Juggernaut to make their way into the Spider-Verse deck, both of which get a lot scarier from a deck that can scale to grab priority and also generate extra Energy. Killmonger has a surprisingly wide variety of targets, and silencers like Deafening Chord, Red Guardian, and Cosmic Ghost Rider may come out to combat some of the better cards in the mode. Thankfully, because of the way missions are structured around playing all of the teams, you're likely to face a pretty healthy diversity of decks, even if some of them end up as win rate outliers.

Come find me and Lauren on social media where we'll be talking about Team Clash all week. Remember to check out her Economy Analysis here!

Full Extended Team Rosters:

Note: The normal versions of the new Team Clash cards are available for use, outside their teams. You CAN play regular Nightcrawler in the Avengers, but you CAN’T play regular Nightcrawler in the X-Men or Team Clash Nightcrawler in the Avengers.