Arena matchups deliberately want us to fail. Proof of this in pictures.

raffster

So I used two R5 5*s in streak 9 and fought way lower tier Kang team.



Then on streak 11 and 12, I used all R5 4* and got all R5 5* opponents.





So why can’t the algorithm give us equal level matchups if player R5 5* team can get Kang/Thanos team? This is absurd. This should be fixed. I believe this was either deliberate or an oversight.

GroundedWisdom

It's not deliberately set up for you to fail. When you use Champs beyond a certain PI after Streak 7 or 8 or so, you get Kang/Thanos. You can do the same in the Basic Arena with Max 4*s at that Streak.
If you're using Champs that either don't meet the PI requirement, or aren't Sandbagged, in the 11-15, you'll get Death Matches.
That's literally how it's always been.

Hamin

Because the PI cap increases from 10-15.

In arenas where 5*s are the cap, you can use all r1 5*s for fights 1-5. 6-10 use r3 5*s or r5 4*s. Fights 11-15 use at least one r4 5* with r3s/r5s.

dot_ditto

GroundedWisdom said:

If you're using Champs that either don't meet the PI requirement,

Translation: It's a gimick to make it hard if you don't know the "trick" .. if you do, it's easy .. O.o

That's literally how it's always been.

Agreed, it's always been a gimick ..

GroundedWisdom

dot_ditto said:

GroundedWisdom said:

If you're using Champs that either don't meet the PI requirement, [/blockquote]

Translation: It's a gimick to make it hard if you don't know the "trick" .. if you do, it's easy .. O.o

[blockquote]
That's literally how it's always been.

Agreed, it's always been a gimick ..

Wouldn't necessarily call it a gimmick. It's built on a rising PI scale, and is triggered by what you bring. There's a formula for building a Streak, but that's a strategy, not a gimmick. Lol.

GroundedWisdom

Also, the thresholds are determined by who else is running what. I've been in the T4CC Arena at times and hit Kang and Thanos at Streak 5 and 6 with lower Champs, simply because not many people were Grinding it at the time. Subsequently, that's also the reason minimum PI has increased, because people have more Max 5*s they're running. It all depends on who brings what in.

Dexman1349

Here's how Arenas work:
1) There is a threshold to trigger a Kang/Thanos team and it decreases with each round of Arenas.
2) The strength of non-Kang/Thanos teams gets harder with each round unless you reach the threshold in the first point. This strength of opponents is dependent on the strength of your own team.
3) These first 2 points hold until you reach round 16. At that point, your team simply needs to remain over a certain minimum to avoid the "death matches."

You can actually trigger a Kang/Thanos team as early as round 4. For example in the 3* Featured arena, teams of 4/40 champs will experience Kang/Thanos matchups for rounds 4-15. Can do the same thing in the 4* Basic with 5/50 champs.

In the case of the 4* Featured arena (as shown in the OP), I run champs up to 2/35 all the way through round 10 without seeing anything particularly difficult. Opponents at that point are harder then they were at Round 5 but you will also notice that you aren't too low to trigger death matches or high enough to trigger Kang/Thanos.

For Rounds 11 & 12 in Featured 4*, the strategy I employ is to bring my best 5* teams to force the Kang/Thanos matchups. Because they are my best attackers, it doesn't matter who I'm paired up with. Then, for rounds 13-15 the Kang/Thanos threshold in #1 above is achieved with 3/45 or 5/50 teams.

If you use a 5/50 team in rounds 11 and 12, you are not high enough to reach the Kang/Thanos threshold. You are also strong enough for the matchup algorithm to pair you against 5/65 champs. I do not use 3/45 or 5/50 champs before round 12 for this reason. In the earlier rounds, they are strong enough to trigger some challenging 4/55 and 5/65 matchups.


All of that being said, my strategy to maximized points in the 4* Featured, T1A and T4B arena is as follows:
Rounds 1-5: 4* 3/30 or 4/40
Rounds 6-10: 5* R1 and R2, saving my "better" R2 teams for rounds 9 & 10
Round 11 & 12: 5* R5 and R4 with my stronger team going first.
Round 13-15: 4* 5/50 champs
Rounds 16-20 (for T1a and T4b only): do not use anything smaller than a 2/35 or 4/40
Rounds 21+: Any team with a combined PI of over 10k and at least one 2/35 champ

LeNoirFaineant

Like others have said, 4* 5/50s will get you a hard match on 11 every time in the 5* arena. I run R1 and r2 5*s all the way through streak 11 (the last fight I always use a 2/35 psylocke and other power control or high damage champs). 12-14 I use 5/65s and 4/55s. Then 6*s and r3 5*s through 20. I don't ever get death matches. I don't generally use 4*s in that arena at all though.

FilledPizza

If you're fine with losing a bit of points, you can bring 2 really high champs and one absolute garbage champion. Since you're using a low level champ, the game will make the fights slightly easier, because they nerf the fights for your low champ. Then you can easily beat the others, and if you do this enough you won't have to worry about this. I haven't tried this, so I do not know if this works or not.

dot_ditto

GroundedWisdom said:

dot_ditto said:

GroundedWisdom said:

If you're using Champs that either don't meet the PI requirement, [/blockquote]

Translation: It's a gimick to make it hard if you don't know the "trick" .. if you do, it's easy .. O.o

[blockquote]
That's literally how it's always been.

Agreed, it's always been a gimick ..

Wouldn't necessarily call it a gimmick.

Funny, Merriam Webster calls it a gimmick:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gimmick

[quote]
an important feature that is not immediately apparent
[/quote]

the "formula" for finding your matchups ends up giving you increasingly harder matchups, then suddenly switches to really easy matchups ... that's not a formula, that's a gimmick .. if you don't use the "proper" teams, you won't get the easier teams.

There is nothing "in game" which tells you how to do this .. all the "documentation" is outside, provided by 3rd party, and via trial and error ..

That's a "gimmick" ... period.

GroundedWisdom

Lol. Right. Your use of the term has nothing to do with the first definition?
" a mechanical device for secretly and dishonestly controlling gambling apparatus"

If you want to call it a gimmick, that's up to you. I don't agree with that term, perse.

dot_ditto

GroundedWisdom said:

Lol. Right. Your use of the term has nothing to do with the first definition?
" a mechanical device for secretly and dishonestly controlling gambling apparatus"

If you want to call it a gimmick, that's up to you. I don't agree with that term, perse.

words have multiple meanings and multiple definitions ... used in multiple scenarios .. obviously this one has nothing to do with mechanical .. and everything to do with a "feature not immediately apparent" .. perfect definition for how arenas work.

You can disagree, that's fine .. doesn't change that the definition fits perfect ..

GroundedWisdom

Fair enough.