Struggling on VT? Here’s what I learnt on the push to GC
TP33
Member Posts: 1,770 ★★★★★
As we enter the second half of the BG season i thought I would make a combination summary/informative post about my season, who my MVPs were, who my LVPs were, and which champs to target/rank up.
I’ll split it into 3 sections, attacker, defenders and gameplay giving tips and experience on this seasons best strategies.
Let’s start with the LVPs, champs who either didn’t make it onto the roster (but would normally) or champs who underperformed on the roster.
Most skill champs are useless this meta, defensively and offensively, some science champs took Ls as well but some were very good. Notable exclusions from attack for me were:
- Kate Bishop
- Kingpin
- Che’ilth
- Zemo
- Quicksilver
- Deathless She Hulk
- Red Guardian
- Archangel
- Kushala (lack of intercept consistency means even at sig 200 shes placing more debuffs)
A lot of these champs either need to place debuffs (Deathless She Hulk, Quicksilver) or just couldn’t cut it as dual threat with such a mutant focused meta (Kingpin, Zemo). Kate Bishop mainly didn’t make the cut cause she’s only a 6*, i only had 8 6*s on the roster and she just didn’t make the cut this season for me, however if you’re still using 6*s I don’t see why she wouldn’t be effective this season at countering some of the tricky matchups.
In terms of attackers on the roster i didn’t have many weak points, although I wanted to take a moment to note that Mr Sinister was surprisingly underwhelming this season, with the debuff purification and hurt locker you would very often only get a handful of degens after the first L1, forcing you to build to L2 before you go again and L1. All in all 4 bars of power = too much time this season (especially compared to the MVPs). I used him a couple times against bullseyes but midway through my push I took NTW to R3 and she became my go to bullseye counter melting him after 1 L2 (which was super easy to build up to as bullseye was almost perma-stunned with the nodes and NTWs abilities).
Now that’s a good way to talk about my attacker MCPs, most of which were mutants, and these ill rank.
1. DPX
2. Dazzler
3. Bishop
4. NTW
5. Silk
6. Juggs
7. Dust
8. Onslaught (low down cause he was on D most of the time)
I’ll give a quick run down of each but all you really need to know is: DPX, 1 bar of power = fight over. Dazzler, 2 bars, photon counter, Bishop, 2 bars, dual threat, NTW, 2/3 bars, safety, Silk, goated as always, Juggs, unstoppable, Dust, Heavy, L2 -> L1 -> L1 all in one stun, Onslaught, L1 -> L2, dual threat.
- Kingpin
- Nick Fury
- Dr Doom
- Destroyer
- Terrax
Would all just get shredded through, abilities don’t really matter. Nick fury does have special protection but if you were using Dust (or any mutant which can throw more than 1 special a fight, which is all of them), he would drop in under 40 anyways. I did a Dust fight where my second L1 literally took his whole second life in about 2 seconds (the unholy triple crit).
Now the important part, defensive MVPs
1. Sentinel
2. Serpent
3. Kindred (wait what 🫣🫣)
4. Fant Man
5. Deathless Thanos
6. Onslaught
7. Bullseye (sometimes would work)
8. NTW
9. Maestro
10. Zola
Now I’ll give more time for each of these because for players who are struggling to push it’s so much more important to understand these than the attackers (which is basically just mutant nuke go brrrrr)
Sentinel was number ONE for me, absolutely undisputed goat of this meta, the number of times I would get hit in my fight or mess up all for it not to matter cause sentinel finished on 60% is crazy. Bro is a beast, shuts down the mutant threat, cannot be killed by anything short of a ramped up deathless Thanos (who always gets banned anyways). Literally nothing will pass through this guy so use him if you have him. Even a R6 6* is enough to shut down any attacking threat.
Serpent is serpent need i say more. The only notable part here is that his cheat death means that mutant nukes won’t work here and if you thought about DPX he reduces bleed duration.
Kindred was kinda crazy this meta. The tactic is to use a mutant nuke, so you spend your power, drop him to 1%, he then roots you, degens you, and you’ve got no power to get out of it. Won me a lot of games either by just doing chip or outright killing opponents for me at 1%
Fant Man, Same Concept as sentinel, prevents mutants from nuking, requires a counter or at least counter play, protection, and on a meta with debuff purification he just goes crazy, won me a lot of rounds
Deathless Thanos, banned more often than not but even that has value, he ate a ban almost every game which means my opponent then only has 2 bans for the rest of my roster, they have to make a hard choice straight off the bat and that’s valuable. Also the 3 games he wasn’t banned i placed him on D and won all 3 rounds, definitely highly recommend.
Onslaught, he’s not gonna slow them down, he’s not gonna kill them every time, but he’s gonna chip them for a bit, which can be very useful in this meta if you know you can nuke your opponents defender as well so are looking for any points you can to win.
Bullseye, sometimes your opponent runs out of mutants, or only has 1 and you’ve got this guy and a couple other tricky defenders, he can put them in a tough spot even in a mutant nuke meta, says a lot doesn’t it… (#nerfbullseye)
NTW, pretty simple, can’t be parried, mutants can’t stun her, no +300% attack bonus, if they get hit the block pen is taking 10% and there’s nothing you can do, pretty underrated
Maestro, can be nuked, but as mentioned above with bullseye if they’re out of mutants or youve got this guy and bullseye, your opponent is pretty cooked one way or another
Zola, now I don’t have Zola, which is why he’s so low down on this list, I only ran into him twice, both times he sent me packing. If you have a Zola, even a 6*, rank him all the way up and USE HIM this season, he’s crazy for this meta and does absolute work here shutting down threats from all sides and going unblockable, stunning you randomly, i don’t get it man just RANK UP ZOLA.
Honourable mentions go to Spider Ham, Nimrod, Warlock, Photon and Enchantress all are good in this meta (although enchantress is not bleed immune so DPX can kill her in 25 seconds
Anyways defense this meta is where games are won and lost, you need a balance of champs in each of the three “categories”
- Delayers
- Damagers
- Deniers
Delayers are your sentinels, sasquatches, Zolas, tanks which sit there and soak up hits, stopping nukes, and giving you time
Damagers are your Bullseyes, Onslaughts, Photons, who are punishing and sources of confirmed chip damage, champs where you know your opponent is going to be 5/10% lighter at the end of
Some champs are both of these, Serpent, Maestro (to a lesser extent), Deathless Thanos (lotta cosmics here…)
Deniers aren’t specific champs but more tactical picks in the draft. Imagine your opponent picks Hulkling, maybe intending to use them as a defender, if you then draft Fant Man youve neutralised that threat, essentially using defenders to counter defenders.
As mentioned before this is a very meta focused meta (if that makes sense), if you use the meta well you’ll have amazing success, if you just run the same deck and tactics as last season and the seasons before you won’t get far.
Go to your deck and start by filtering by mutant, put in every nuke you have at a decent rank for you (if that’s 5*s it’s 5*s, if that’s R3 7*s then what are you doing in VT?) Then look at those defenders i mentioned above, a mix of tech champs as delayers, and others as Damagers.
You need to know which defenders to use in which situations. If your opponent has placed Sentinel, don’t use your high ranked serpent, it’s fine to “write off” a round in order to win the game, don’t just use your best defender round one, then your next best round 2, think about who you’re using on attack and what your opponent is up to.
In this meta a DPX can kill a Sasquatch of equal rank in 25 seconds, so if your opponent places a champion you know you can nuke think about how you’re going to win the round, don’t always give them an Onslaught or a Bullseye to melt through, place your tanks and win on time.
Same applies for champs like Photon, if you don’t have a photon counter and your opponent places one, how are you going to win on points? Is it going to be by running down the clock cause your opponent has no nukes left, or by chipping them out by placing your bullseye.
The perfect example of this was a game I played earlier today, it’s round 3, my opponent has NTW, Void and Nimrod, I have Dust, Photon and Ironheart.
For them the obvious choice of defender is Nimrod, none of the 3 champs i have can nuke him, and he’s not an effective attacker against my Photon (who is the obvious placement from me). Even if I had placed Dust he has NTW who can nuke her in 1 L2. Instead he placed void, Dust kills him in 35 seconds, easy win for me.
Overcomplicating or overthinking Leads to losses, the simplest solution in battlegrounds is 99% of the time the right one. Opponents are unlikely to place out of the box defenders in a nuke meta, they stick to what they know will win them rounds. Utilising the right defenders is all the difference this season.
On attack understanding that power = time and time = points is vital. Categorising champions by “how many bars of power to kill” is very useful in nuke metas as a good way of guessing how long it will take you or your opponent to take out a champion. A rough guide would go something like
1 bar = 20-25 seconds
2 bars = 30-40 seconds
3 bars = 40-50 seconds
4 bars = 50-60 seconds
5+ bars = a loss in this meta
Ignoring outside power gain of course, purgatory fights i was using like 7-9 bars of power but with MD + L3 power gain that’s still 50 odd seconds.
The best champions in a meta will kill in 1 bar, usually this will be your DPX, Mr Sinister, Kate Bishop, Storm PX, (this meta only DPX and Storm but power shield let’s all of these guys shine) champs which can do crazy damage off the L1, usually with a damage over time effect (hence 1 bar to kill champs usually take over 20 seconds, ~15 to get the bar and between 5 and 10 to kill)
Good champions are your 2/3 bar killers, anyone with power efficiency mechanics will also slot into this category (Prof X, Dust are notable ones) but in this meta Bishop, Storm PX (against higher health opponents), Dazzler all sit here
Once you’re asking for more than 3 bars you’re leaving nuke range and entering tactical picks/high health kills, if a champ needs more than 3 bars to kill but has a risky/self damaging playstyle it’s probably not even worth using them in a nuke meta like this, your serpent and sentinel counters may end up in here, Beta Ray Bill and Spider Ham are notable champs in these categories, may not be the fastest but are reliable and counter specific niches that the meta can find itself in (BRB is the best Sentinel counter, also shuts down red skull and Warlock so almost a must have this meta)
Hopefully these tips will help you progress this season if you are feeling stuck. Generally the best time to push VT is now, as we enter the third week the top level accounts filter up to GC and high vibranium, but the last week late pushers also aren’t out of hibernation yet. This season i started further down than ever after not playing BGs for 2 months in a row (Gold 3 💔💔) so decided to push earlier than usual, gaining this experience for other seasons where I will be pushing. Obviously open to discussion of anyone else has tips about how to push VT, especially for lower ranked Paragon/TB accounts which need the rewards but find pushing really hard against 7* R3 rosters.
I’ll split it into 3 sections, attacker, defenders and gameplay giving tips and experience on this seasons best strategies.
Attackers
The biggest takeaway is to PLAY INTO THE NODES. This seasons meta is SO important to understand and play around. Mutant champions are your best friends on attack, debuff purification nullifies much of the skill class and can make a lot of other attackers far less effective.Let’s start with the LVPs, champs who either didn’t make it onto the roster (but would normally) or champs who underperformed on the roster.
Most skill champs are useless this meta, defensively and offensively, some science champs took Ls as well but some were very good. Notable exclusions from attack for me were:
- Kate Bishop
- Kingpin
- Che’ilth
- Zemo
- Quicksilver
- Deathless She Hulk
- Red Guardian
- Archangel
- Kushala (lack of intercept consistency means even at sig 200 shes placing more debuffs)
A lot of these champs either need to place debuffs (Deathless She Hulk, Quicksilver) or just couldn’t cut it as dual threat with such a mutant focused meta (Kingpin, Zemo). Kate Bishop mainly didn’t make the cut cause she’s only a 6*, i only had 8 6*s on the roster and she just didn’t make the cut this season for me, however if you’re still using 6*s I don’t see why she wouldn’t be effective this season at countering some of the tricky matchups.
In terms of attackers on the roster i didn’t have many weak points, although I wanted to take a moment to note that Mr Sinister was surprisingly underwhelming this season, with the debuff purification and hurt locker you would very often only get a handful of degens after the first L1, forcing you to build to L2 before you go again and L1. All in all 4 bars of power = too much time this season (especially compared to the MVPs). I used him a couple times against bullseyes but midway through my push I took NTW to R3 and she became my go to bullseye counter melting him after 1 L2 (which was super easy to build up to as bullseye was almost perma-stunned with the nodes and NTWs abilities).
Now that’s a good way to talk about my attacker MCPs, most of which were mutants, and these ill rank.
1. DPX
2. Dazzler
3. Bishop
4. NTW
5. Silk
6. Juggs
7. Dust
8. Onslaught (low down cause he was on D most of the time)
I’ll give a quick run down of each but all you really need to know is: DPX, 1 bar of power = fight over. Dazzler, 2 bars, photon counter, Bishop, 2 bars, dual threat, NTW, 2/3 bars, safety, Silk, goated as always, Juggs, unstoppable, Dust, Heavy, L2 -> L1 -> L1 all in one stun, Onslaught, L1 -> L2, dual threat.
Defenders
LVPs this season we’re mostly the skill champs and champions which don’t have any form of protection against special attacks/second life- Kingpin
- Nick Fury
- Dr Doom
- Destroyer
- Terrax
Would all just get shredded through, abilities don’t really matter. Nick fury does have special protection but if you were using Dust (or any mutant which can throw more than 1 special a fight, which is all of them), he would drop in under 40 anyways. I did a Dust fight where my second L1 literally took his whole second life in about 2 seconds (the unholy triple crit).
Now the important part, defensive MVPs
1. Sentinel
2. Serpent
3. Kindred (wait what 🫣🫣)
4. Fant Man
5. Deathless Thanos
6. Onslaught
7. Bullseye (sometimes would work)
8. NTW
9. Maestro
10. Zola
Now I’ll give more time for each of these because for players who are struggling to push it’s so much more important to understand these than the attackers (which is basically just mutant nuke go brrrrr)
Sentinel was number ONE for me, absolutely undisputed goat of this meta, the number of times I would get hit in my fight or mess up all for it not to matter cause sentinel finished on 60% is crazy. Bro is a beast, shuts down the mutant threat, cannot be killed by anything short of a ramped up deathless Thanos (who always gets banned anyways). Literally nothing will pass through this guy so use him if you have him. Even a R6 6* is enough to shut down any attacking threat.
Serpent is serpent need i say more. The only notable part here is that his cheat death means that mutant nukes won’t work here and if you thought about DPX he reduces bleed duration.
Kindred was kinda crazy this meta. The tactic is to use a mutant nuke, so you spend your power, drop him to 1%, he then roots you, degens you, and you’ve got no power to get out of it. Won me a lot of games either by just doing chip or outright killing opponents for me at 1%
Fant Man, Same Concept as sentinel, prevents mutants from nuking, requires a counter or at least counter play, protection, and on a meta with debuff purification he just goes crazy, won me a lot of rounds
Deathless Thanos, banned more often than not but even that has value, he ate a ban almost every game which means my opponent then only has 2 bans for the rest of my roster, they have to make a hard choice straight off the bat and that’s valuable. Also the 3 games he wasn’t banned i placed him on D and won all 3 rounds, definitely highly recommend.
Onslaught, he’s not gonna slow them down, he’s not gonna kill them every time, but he’s gonna chip them for a bit, which can be very useful in this meta if you know you can nuke your opponents defender as well so are looking for any points you can to win.
Bullseye, sometimes your opponent runs out of mutants, or only has 1 and you’ve got this guy and a couple other tricky defenders, he can put them in a tough spot even in a mutant nuke meta, says a lot doesn’t it… (#nerfbullseye)
NTW, pretty simple, can’t be parried, mutants can’t stun her, no +300% attack bonus, if they get hit the block pen is taking 10% and there’s nothing you can do, pretty underrated
Maestro, can be nuked, but as mentioned above with bullseye if they’re out of mutants or youve got this guy and bullseye, your opponent is pretty cooked one way or another
Zola, now I don’t have Zola, which is why he’s so low down on this list, I only ran into him twice, both times he sent me packing. If you have a Zola, even a 6*, rank him all the way up and USE HIM this season, he’s crazy for this meta and does absolute work here shutting down threats from all sides and going unblockable, stunning you randomly, i don’t get it man just RANK UP ZOLA.
Honourable mentions go to Spider Ham, Nimrod, Warlock, Photon and Enchantress all are good in this meta (although enchantress is not bleed immune so DPX can kill her in 25 seconds
Anyways defense this meta is where games are won and lost, you need a balance of champs in each of the three “categories”
- Delayers
- Damagers
- Deniers
Delayers are your sentinels, sasquatches, Zolas, tanks which sit there and soak up hits, stopping nukes, and giving you time
Damagers are your Bullseyes, Onslaughts, Photons, who are punishing and sources of confirmed chip damage, champs where you know your opponent is going to be 5/10% lighter at the end of
Some champs are both of these, Serpent, Maestro (to a lesser extent), Deathless Thanos (lotta cosmics here…)
Deniers aren’t specific champs but more tactical picks in the draft. Imagine your opponent picks Hulkling, maybe intending to use them as a defender, if you then draft Fant Man youve neutralised that threat, essentially using defenders to counter defenders.
Tactics
Now that I’ve explained the 3 Ds of defense it’s a good time to talk tactics.As mentioned before this is a very meta focused meta (if that makes sense), if you use the meta well you’ll have amazing success, if you just run the same deck and tactics as last season and the seasons before you won’t get far.
Go to your deck and start by filtering by mutant, put in every nuke you have at a decent rank for you (if that’s 5*s it’s 5*s, if that’s R3 7*s then what are you doing in VT?) Then look at those defenders i mentioned above, a mix of tech champs as delayers, and others as Damagers.
You need to know which defenders to use in which situations. If your opponent has placed Sentinel, don’t use your high ranked serpent, it’s fine to “write off” a round in order to win the game, don’t just use your best defender round one, then your next best round 2, think about who you’re using on attack and what your opponent is up to.
In this meta a DPX can kill a Sasquatch of equal rank in 25 seconds, so if your opponent places a champion you know you can nuke think about how you’re going to win the round, don’t always give them an Onslaught or a Bullseye to melt through, place your tanks and win on time.
Same applies for champs like Photon, if you don’t have a photon counter and your opponent places one, how are you going to win on points? Is it going to be by running down the clock cause your opponent has no nukes left, or by chipping them out by placing your bullseye.
The perfect example of this was a game I played earlier today, it’s round 3, my opponent has NTW, Void and Nimrod, I have Dust, Photon and Ironheart.
For them the obvious choice of defender is Nimrod, none of the 3 champs i have can nuke him, and he’s not an effective attacker against my Photon (who is the obvious placement from me). Even if I had placed Dust he has NTW who can nuke her in 1 L2. Instead he placed void, Dust kills him in 35 seconds, easy win for me.
Overcomplicating or overthinking Leads to losses, the simplest solution in battlegrounds is 99% of the time the right one. Opponents are unlikely to place out of the box defenders in a nuke meta, they stick to what they know will win them rounds. Utilising the right defenders is all the difference this season.
On attack understanding that power = time and time = points is vital. Categorising champions by “how many bars of power to kill” is very useful in nuke metas as a good way of guessing how long it will take you or your opponent to take out a champion. A rough guide would go something like
1 bar = 20-25 seconds
2 bars = 30-40 seconds
3 bars = 40-50 seconds
4 bars = 50-60 seconds
5+ bars = a loss in this meta
Ignoring outside power gain of course, purgatory fights i was using like 7-9 bars of power but with MD + L3 power gain that’s still 50 odd seconds.
The best champions in a meta will kill in 1 bar, usually this will be your DPX, Mr Sinister, Kate Bishop, Storm PX, (this meta only DPX and Storm but power shield let’s all of these guys shine) champs which can do crazy damage off the L1, usually with a damage over time effect (hence 1 bar to kill champs usually take over 20 seconds, ~15 to get the bar and between 5 and 10 to kill)
Good champions are your 2/3 bar killers, anyone with power efficiency mechanics will also slot into this category (Prof X, Dust are notable ones) but in this meta Bishop, Storm PX (against higher health opponents), Dazzler all sit here
Once you’re asking for more than 3 bars you’re leaving nuke range and entering tactical picks/high health kills, if a champ needs more than 3 bars to kill but has a risky/self damaging playstyle it’s probably not even worth using them in a nuke meta like this, your serpent and sentinel counters may end up in here, Beta Ray Bill and Spider Ham are notable champs in these categories, may not be the fastest but are reliable and counter specific niches that the meta can find itself in (BRB is the best Sentinel counter, also shuts down red skull and Warlock so almost a must have this meta)
Hopefully these tips will help you progress this season if you are feeling stuck. Generally the best time to push VT is now, as we enter the third week the top level accounts filter up to GC and high vibranium, but the last week late pushers also aren’t out of hibernation yet. This season i started further down than ever after not playing BGs for 2 months in a row (Gold 3 💔💔) so decided to push earlier than usual, gaining this experience for other seasons where I will be pushing. Obviously open to discussion of anyone else has tips about how to push VT, especially for lower ranked Paragon/TB accounts which need the rewards but find pushing really hard against 7* R3 rosters.
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Comments
Also silk kinda suck this meta as you have to be very very careful on when you are charging heavy. If you charge when they have a cleanse you're done.
Any tech defenderp by default is great on defense. Dpx was able to consistently nuke sentinel. Also you left out storm. She is one of the best this meta
However I have tried really hard to use my Red Guardian, however it’s been very difficult, as his trauma is consistently being cleansed and inevitably gets cleansed anyways, so he isn’t amazing this season unless I’m playing him wrong.
Emma frost crits 😮💨😮💨😮💨
I agree that Sinister isn’t the best. If you don’t kill them with the first sp1, you’ve probably lost the round. A high risk attacker for most players.
My really dumb shorthand for getting through VT as easily as possible — if your opponent has any highly ranked mutants THAT YOU DON’T HAVE, ban them. This meta is really a race and if you can take some of their best attackers off the board without gutting your own team, it’s an easy strategy to apply for each match.
Someone forgot to tell 7R4 DThanos that Sinister is underwhelming this season...
Also, I missed that OP said sinister is underwhelming, wild take. Sinister is finishing fights ludicrously fast with the stun purification SP1
I don't really understand half of what he's talking about or what version of BG he's playing...
So
Bullseye can do the same to Amora
Mwahahaha 😈🤣
Also when I said Sinister was underwhelming that’s based on my experience using him, he wasn’t doing like DPX numbers for me he would just apply like a few degens which would do normal damage, but if the opponent has a cleanse on them it’s kinda game over. Also if I missed any champions it’s probably just cause I don’t have them