Best Of

Mystique and C&D have technical issues iirc so I'm not expecting any of them.

Chameleon...what would he do really?

Hobgoblin, literally just Green Goblin but meh.

Lizard I think is safe-ish, he's 99% likely but he's not guaranteed.

Blob I'd say is safer for next year.

Since the Summoner's Choice this year was focused on martial arts and swords (I think?) I'm assuming Mr Knight's release will be beside Swordmaster (Lin Lie) cause I'm assuming they wanted a unique thing with swords for the event/side quest going on that month, and Lin Lie is *the* Swordmaster...or Black Knight.

I'm assuming Doom 2099 will be added to catch up with the MARVEL Rivals hype so probably November? Or a mad scientist duo month with Lizard in October?

Wonder Man is getting a show so he's a given I think to see added.

Gonna get like 2 Eidols thrown in to finish the 5 so altogether...

Swordmaster/Lin Lie or Black Knight & Mr Knight
Wonder Man
Lizard/Doom 2099
2 Eidols

Which gives us 7: 2 for September, 2 for October, 2 for November and one for December to end out the year.

Doom 2099 is the one I'm not confident moreso on since I'd assume they wanna cash on RIVALS hype or Marvel would want to push him more so that can be swapped out

Nah they don't add champs based on them appearing on a show. Otherwise we'd have swordsman or echo or Agatha etc already. They do for movies, but not shows.

Autoblock champs lately removing true sense/strike and undermine is kinda lame tbh..

Atleast bullseye still works.

Soon we will get alot more autoblock champs that shut down true effects and undermine then they will release counters with crushed instead or unblockable when autoblocked type bs. Then they will release champs to shut crushed and unblockable and bla bla its just a perpetuating cycle.

Looks like he won't work against awakened Modok, plus flux reducing AA of true strike & true sense by up to 100%. We're cooked.

He will. Bullseye uses True Accuracy, not True Strike or True Sense.

Buffed Night Thrasher also has true accuracy, so does Knull.

Other than Cull and maybe Sabretooth they look very underwhelming, Voodoo is debatable we'll have to see how it actually plays out cause some of it sounds like a nerf and some of it sounds like a tune up but these three are the only ones that have any meta relevance potential because they will actually target current annoying meta defenders. Cull for Zola, Sabretooth for Bullseye and Yelena, Voodoo for Serpent and Dark Phoenix. The rest however, I have no idea where I would even use them, even post buff they sound mid on paper especially Viv what even are those changes? Big waste of a "rework" when they could've picked Doc Oc, Darkhawk or Vulture and done an actual rework.

They were never advertised as reworks and Viv was never advertised as being a buff slot. They wanted her in the selector, decided to fix some bugs with her and decided that they had the time to do some tune ups on the rest of the pool to make them better at what they already do which they objectively are. Night Thrasher is gonna be a great counter to modok and high evolutionary too

???

@ahmynuts lemme borrow this rq.

Well that's still a terrible choice for the selector regardless of how it was advertised, it's not about expecting something else its about the fact that there are other champs that needed the tune ups more, she barely got any changes they could've easily fixed those small issues on a different update like they're doing with Zemo that's why I say it feels like a wasted slot. All the tech champs I mentioned needed major tune ups similar to the rest of the champs in the pool, Viv makes absolutely no sense she barely got two changes that will leave her on the spot she was in before the buff in terms of relevance.

Not familiar with Night Thrasher so I can't really comment on that, if he does then I'll stand corrected on that one. Not like High Evo needs a counter but MODOK does look like cancer after the buff.

Champion Reworks is, admittedly, misleading. Rework is synonymous with overhaul but I’ve also seen it coined as a word for a buff, whether that be a tune up, an update, or something larger. It’s definitely confusing. That being said, it’s not like they hid the fact that these buffs were not overhauls. They very openly talked about it in the live streams and stated that these were smaller tune ups meant to boost these champions as they enter the 7* pool. Same thing with the kind of changes Viv was going to receive.

As a matter fact, thinking back to the July stream, I’m pretty sure that these champions originally were never going to get a buff of any kind. This was going to resemble to the Reunion Crystal from last year, in which six champions (none of which received buffs) entered the 7* pool but were exclusive to the Crucible and a few other places. Assumedly, the Rebirth event was going to be the same. The only reason we got these buffs was because of “passionate people”, as Mike and Dork shared, who wanted to improve these champions before their release. I think Mike also mentioned in today’s stream that they just happened to have a little more time for this kind of thing due to the change in the balancing cadence.

So, we were never getting complete reworks and there weren’t even going to be buffs originally because they weren’t looking for champions to buff when this started but champions they felt were ready to enter the 7* pool. I think Viv makes a lot of sense for this pool when you consider that. She didn’t really need a buff. It also means that champions who needed a buff, like Darkhawk or Doc Ock, were not on the table. To be honest though, I’m not sure how some of these champions weren’t considered as needing a buff originally. Especially Night Thrasher, Sabretooth, and Doctor Voodoo, who definitely needed buffs.

That's fine I don't mind the wording, and I don't have an issue with the rest of the buffs either. Only thing that bothers me is that Viv got two very small changes and it feels like a wasted opportunity for Doc Oc, Darkhawk or Vulture. They could've easily just included these on a different update similar to how they're doing with Zemo even though yes I know it's not the exact same situation.

Other than Cull and maybe Sabretooth they look very underwhelming, Voodoo is debatable we'll have to see how it actually plays out cause some of it sounds like a nerf and some of it sounds like a tune up but these three are the only ones that have any meta relevance potential because they will actually target current annoying meta defenders. Cull for Zola, Sabretooth for Bullseye and Yelena, Voodoo for Serpent and Dark Phoenix. The rest however, I have no idea where I would even use them, even post buff they sound mid on paper especially Viv what even are those changes? Big waste of a "rework" when they could've picked Doc Oc, Darkhawk or Vulture and done an actual rework.

They were never advertised as reworks and Viv was never advertised as being a buff slot. They wanted her in the selector, decided to fix some bugs with her and decided that they had the time to do some tune ups on the rest of the pool to make them better at what they already do which they objectively are. Night Thrasher is gonna be a great counter to modok and high evolutionary too

???

@ahmynuts lemme borrow this rq.

Well that's still a terrible choice for the selector regardless of how it was advertised, it's not about expecting something else its about the fact that there are other champs that needed the tune ups more, she barely got any changes they could've easily fixed those small issues on a different update like they're doing with Zemo that's why I say it feels like a wasted slot. All the tech champs I mentioned needed major tune ups similar to the rest of the champs in the pool, Viv makes absolutely no sense she barely got two changes that will leave her on the spot she was in before the buff in terms of relevance.

Not familiar with Night Thrasher so I can't really comment on that, if he does then I'll stand corrected on that one. Not like High Evo needs a counter but MODOK does look like cancer after the buff.

Viv is only not relevant as much more because she needs higher stats, her as a7 star is going to dominate bgs. She is a great zola counter, her damage is quick to access and really great for bgs, depending on the meta she can be a nasty defender if you don't bring a counter, and not that incursions is necessarily super relevant but she's nuts there.

High evolutionary is going to be a nightmare defender, all it takes is one node to make him a pain without a counter in bgs, he's not gonna be serpent but he's someone that you need to keep focused on when fighting which can do a lot in bgs. Night thrashers medium, heavy and special attacks can't be auto blocked or evaded, I think he'll be a dark horse.

She is not going to dominate BGs, that's a huge overstatement and I think you're not being realistic here, maybe in VT she will but in GC where scores get very competitive I doubt she will. There are way too many meta defenders she can't do, not to mention a lot of them can't miss and they have a **** ton of block chip damage like Photon. Then there are others who have to be fought in a specific way like Enchantress and Viv's rotation and playstyle aren't exactly braindead playstyles which is going to make it hard to pull off compared to using the actual hard counters. Is she gonna do Zola faster and better than Phoenix Cull Starky Juggs or Karolina? Lol never, no matter how good you are at the game.

I disagree, I've used Okoye and Red Guardian on this last meta and even though yes I've only faced him twice, even with the protection regen and stun immunity which have made this meta very hard he's been very easy to deal with because that autoblock doesn't trigger parry and it's easy to get rid of. As long as you stick to baiting sp1s strictly, he's nothing but a good time staller and as we know time doesn't really matter in BGs anymore.

I'm happy that we're getting buffs for all of these champions, but the only one I really care about personally is MODOK. I used to use mine all the time back when he was one of my first 6*s, so I was psyched when I heard he'd get buffed. Then the only thing they highlighted on the stream was that he was going to become an even more annoying defender, and I was sad for a bit. But then I actually read his spotlight and it does seem as if he's getting a fairly substantial buff to his attack as well.

I really don't like that they kept the "He does a lot of stuff and gains a bunch of stat increases but we won't tell you how, hahahahaha, super genius!" part of his kit, but being able to inflict incinerates and bleeds on all hits from his heavy/SP2 instead of just the one from both of those sources opens up for a whole lot more damage. At first I was a little bummed that the actual percentages were fairly low, but then I saw that his chance to inflict those debuffs increased when you awakened him and sig'd him up. While I'm not a huge fan of those kinds of abilities that have a chance to fail (all on their own, without any outside interference), you can at least ultimately bump up their ability accuracy slightly past 100%, which is nice.

The buff I'm most curious about is Doctor Voodoo. On paper, it doesn't look like much. In terms of actual changes (putting aside how impactful they may or may not be for a moment), he got about as many as not-really-buffed Viv Vision. Which seems odd for a champ that came out almost a decade ago. But I'll try to be open-minded about it.

DLL does shine a good light on the changes and process around them in his video.
It did really sound like they had almost no time and really poured alot of that little time into sabertooth and night thrasher.
His explanation on voodoo was interesting but didn't sway me from being on the fence. I need to see it in action