YMMV / Marvel Puzzle Quest

• Base-Breaking Character: Not counting those that enter Game-Breaker and Complacent Gaming Syndrome below (as among others Kitty, Polaris, and pre-nerf Bishop earn equal amounts of love for being useful and hate for being overused and annoying to fight), there are two universes whose favoritism by the developers is at times accused of entering Creator's Pet status.
  • Spider-Man is represented in all five tiers, including two variants in both 4* (MCU and the Oscorp suit that had just came out in the comics) and 5* ("regular" and black suit). And that's saying nothing of the extended Spider-Verse family, which includes Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Woman, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man 2099, Silk, and three versions of Venom (four with Anti-Venom), not to mention Spidey's plentiful rogues gallery. By the contrast, the trope namer of Wolverine Publicity (Logan is popular enough to have variants in all but the 1* tier, and that's not including X-23 or either version of Daken - one of whom goes by Wolverine!) and the other two characters in all five tiers (Black Widow and Hawkeye) came less frequently than Spidey's, so the overall feeling of favoritism is downplayed by comparison.
  • It's pretty much a given that every major Marvel Cinematic Universe character will get their own 5* movie version, even if they already existed in-game. This has led some fans to complain about these characters getting overdue attention, as well as complaints about how a tier that started with cosmic-level characters (e.g. Silver Surfer, Jean Grey's Phoenix, or Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet) now includes several characters who are just Badass Normals. However, there are exceptions:
    • Jessica Jones, Okoye, Rescue, Killmonger, Yellowjacket, Ronan, Shang-Chi and Sersi were introduced as 5* characters.
    • Ant-Man, Agent Coulson, Ghost, Gorr, Ikaris, Mordo, Mysterio, Monica Rambeau, Namora, Nebula, Nick Fury, Quake, Red Guardian, Shuri, Talos, Valkyrie, Vulture, War Machine, and Yondu only exist as 4* characters.
    • Many MCU variants are in the 4* tier, including Iron Fist (based on his Netflix show), Hulk (based on his gladiator look from Thor: Ragnarok), Spider-Man (based on the Iron Spider suit from Infinity War), Black Widow (based on her blonde look from Infinity War), Hawkeye (the Ronin from Endgame), Doc Ock (the Alfred Molina version brought back for No Way Home), Thanos (wielding his blade from Endgame) and She-Hulk (which led to much surprise when the very next character after the She-Hulk: Attorney at Law variant was a 5* Immortal She-Hulk).
    • Some MCU variants are even in the 3* tier, including Doctor Strange (released alongside a 5* comics variant with the same kit) and Elektra (based on her look in the Netflix shows, adapted from the 4* original).
    • Robbie Reyes' Ghost Rider and Hope van Dyne's Wasp are legacy characters released as 5* variants to existing 4*s, Johnny Blaze's Ghost Rider and Janet van Dyne's Wasp.
    • Players were shocked when the movie version of Yelena Belova was a 5*, less because of Black Widow getting delayed but due to the other incarnation being a 1*, and a very weak one (see Low-Tier Letdown below).
    • A case fueled by Rule of Funny is Alligator Loki. And one for Rule of Cool is The Hydra Stomper (which players noted that also serves as an excuse to bring another variant of both Steve Rogers and Iron Man).
    • Gargantos was a 5*... and as opposed to the movie version being an Adaptational Wimp of Shuma-Gorath, the game certainly lives up to him being an Eldritch Abomination.
    • Exaggerated by Captain America, who has two 5* variants based on his MCU counterpart. To the point that the variant that would deserve a 5* (the one wielding Mjolnir from Endgame) ended up at 4* instead.
• Bizarro Episode: "Savage Beasts", one of the chapters in the "Cosmic Chaos" quest, features Chewy the cat teaming up with Howard the Duck, Devil Dinosaur, and Lockjaw after they all get stranded in the Savage Land. How they all got there is only briefly explained, and the events of the chapter are not referenced anywhere else in the quest.
• Broken Base:
  • You have one side of players that are happy that their favorite characters will get to show up in the game, but another side that constantly complains about how frustrating RNG makes earning higher rarity comic book covers. To add fuel to the fire, there are characters that not many would approve such as Amadeus Cho as the Hulk or another "lazy" addition of Wolverine.
  • Character diversity is often an issue for some, particularly when the game introduces variants of existing ones over characters who don't exist in the game yet. For example: Peggy Carter is yet another Captain America in the game, following three variants of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson as Cap. On the other hand, it's nice to be able to recruit another kickass female character in the roster, and she proved popular enough to later become an official version of the character in Saladin Ahmed's Exiles.
  • In 2017, in response to the rapidly-expanding roster, the game introduced vaulting, where certain 3 star and, more importantly, 4 star characters were rotated out of the heroic and legendary packs. Some fans appreciated the switch, as many had been complaining that, due to the rarity of legendary tokens and the random nature of the packs, it was almost impossible to fully cover a 4-star hero anymore, and limiting the pack size to just the most recent heroes increased the odds of covering some. Others were upset that the change made so many older heroes basically impossible to fully cover, as it removed players' main methods of obtaining covers for them, and left thereby players with a whole bunch of rosters spots on weaker under-covered heroes.
  • The introduction of supports and Red ISO have split the player base. While most agree they're a fine concept, adding benefits to players in matches, the implementation of them in-game has caused frustration, as they're hard to come by and near-impossible to completely cover without paying for vault/store tokens.
  • Costumes have similarly been as divisive as supports for more or less the same reasons, but unlike the latter, they're only cosmetic enhancements that don't give players a gameplay advantage. The most common complaint is that they're all only available through paywalls, either as VIP subscription rewards, vault items, or included as bundles that cost $75 dollars.
  • Replacing Bonus Heroes (a small chance of getting an extra cover) with Shards (every token pull gives a small percentage of a full cover) was very contested, with some players arguing Shards should be complimentary instead of a replacement or arguing that it takes forever to complete the set for a cover. Still, some liked that the cover created with Shards could be of any color.
  • The fact that between 2017 and 2022 all new characters were 4 or 5 stars earns complaints, at times for characters players deem that shouldn't be in such a high tier, but mostly because it's hard to roster and improve them - specially 5 stars, as the supposed 1\7 odds of getting one with Legendary Tokens stumbles on the much higher probability of getting one of the over a hundred 4 stars.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: 4* Rocket\Groot+Kitty+Bishop - or, after Bishop's Nerf, Rocket\Groot+4* Juggernaut+Polaris. At higher levels, 5* Thor+Okoye+a third. (see more on the Game-Breaker cases below)
• Demonic Spiders: While many of the minion characters can be annoying (see Goddamn Bats below), one stands head and shoulders above all of them: The Muscle Grunts are generally difficult to control, especially at higher levels thanks to their increasing health and Threaten tiles which appear in difficult spots.
  • High-level Mindless Ones are comparable to the Muscle: high HP, benefit tiles (only of all kinds, and making one appear right as the battle starts - which makes players hate them even more, as they can't make a move until all those tiles appear, one by one; and one of their attacks downright makes such tiles stronger), and a strong attack that hits the whole party in Eye Beams.
• Fan Nickname: Almost every character that has a variant has one. Names vary from simple acronyms (OBW, OML), longer names based on their variants (Teen Jean, Patch, Hammercap), Letters 2 Numbers (Strang3,C4rol, Thano5), punny portmanteaus (Gladiathor) to completely original ones (Flaptain). In some cases various combinations of characters even had their own nicknames (Fistbuster, Thorkoye).
  • Back when certain 2 star characters were retooled as 3 stars with higher skill damage these 3 star characters were labelled as Lazy characters (i.e. Lazy Thor, Lazy Daken, Lazy Cap) as the developers were deemed lazy to create completely new skillsets and would rather power up whatever skills they already had onto a new rarity.
  • Although not as universal, people will often refer to different rankings of the same characters with nicknames, such as white Magneto or red Magneto for two and three stars respectively due to the color of their armor.
  • Sam Wilson as Captain America has been popularly dubbed as "Captain Falcon", "Falcap" or "Flaptain".
  • Jean Grey and Hulkbuster are players' go-to team combo that is dubbed as Jean Buster.
  • 4 star Professor X, 4 star Jean Grey, and 3 star Black Widow are referred to as "Charlie's Angels".
  • The team of 2-star Thor, Storm, and Magneto is known as **Thormneto** and is very popular for Deadpool's Daily Quest.
  • 4 star Rocket & Groot and Kitty Pride are a widely overused duo referred to as "Gritty".
  • 5 star Professor X was nicknamed "Professor $" when he was featured in PVE quickly after release, meaning the average player would need to buy some tokens for his vault to fully get the points.
  • 5 star Carnage earned the nickname "Carbage" upon release for being considered not much of an improvement over the 4 star one. Still, he became popular once players actually got enough covers to make him a valuable fighter (usually partnered with the next 5 star, Beta Ray Bill).
  • 5 Star Cyclops is known as "Sighclops".
• Game-Breaker: A few teams, if you're not strong enough to overcome them, can effectively wreck you:
  • 3* Iron Fist/3* Luke Cage/3* Dr. Strange is one for the 3* tier. At the start of their turn, Iron Fist will use his Exquisite Technique skill to create a powerful Green Attack Tile and Luke Cage will use his Unbreakable skill to create a tough Red Shield Tile. Breaking any of these tiles on your turn means they'll just grow it right back. Making this painful is Dr. Strange's Flames of the Faltine, which attacks you and heals his team whenever you use a Skill, meaning you can effectively cherry tap your opponent while they try to overcome you.
  • 4* Luke Cage/either Doctor Strange: Activating a friendly ability triggers their passives, which creates an enemy protect tile (Luke Cage) and deals damage to your team (Doctor Strange).
  • Medusa/4* Gamora/4* Rocket & Groot: Grocket's Welcome to the Team automatically generates friendly strike tiles at the start of a match, which are strengthened by the presence of a fellow Guardian on the team — Gamora is often seen as one of the best in the 4* tier, so many choose to use her for that purpose. Medusa's Entangled deals passive damage (as long as its countdown tile is present) that's enhanced by the initial strike tiles, while The Resolute Queen acts as insurance for them, giving the team a burst of health if matched.
  • Medusa/Carnage: Carnage places attack tiles for both teams every round, which whenever they're destroyed trigger The Resolute Queen and either give AP or heal the team. And said attack tiles are complimented by both Entangled (another source of passive damage) and high-level Hair Meddle (can capture the ones set for the adversary).
  • Kitty Pryde/4* Rocket & Groot: Kitty's Phase and Conquer strengthens friendly strike tiles after a certain amount of them are present on the board, which makes her a dangerous partner for Grocket when they're both fully covered and leveled.
  • Okoye/Medusa/5* Thor: Okoye's Wakanda Forever! increases team damage for every Team-Up AP in the player's pool, which makes her an excellent partner for anyone, but Medusa and 5* Thor especially benefit. Medusa's Entanglement deals passive damage each turn its countdown tile is present, and can theoretically deal upwards of 30K damage a turn if Team-Up AP is maxed out, while Thor's God of Thunder can devastate the enemy team after his health falls under a certain percentage.
    • Immortal Hulk is also a very used third, given Okoye's aforementioned ability boosts his The Green Door power, that starts rounds destroying green tiles for team damage.
  • America Chavez/Any: Because her kit is made entirely of passive abilities that are easy to activate, America often shows up on PVP teams, but especially when paired with 5*s.
  • 5* Thanos/5* Black Panther: Thanos' Court Death, which deals massive damage to the other team after one of theirs is downed, also adds a stun (to both teams) on the 5* tier, which in turn activates Black Panther's Move... or Be Moved, potentially dealing massive damage when he returns from being stunned, which could then trigger Thanos' Court Death a second (and third) time.
  • Both Bishop and 4* Captain America became particularly overused because they jump to take high-damage attacks with an added effect - after Bishop's been hit enough, he unleashes a strong attack; and Cap creates short countdowns that change tile colors across the board. The devs eventually took care of this by nerfing those abilities: Bishop's was no longer a passive, but had to be fired first; and Cap's only created one countdown tile.
  • Shortly after release, Karnak was everywhere on PVP, given he starts battles placing a protect tile, drops critical tiles easily, and has an ability that rises his match damage fivefold.
  • Polaris also rose shortly after release, given every special tile she destroys leads to three others created, and she starts every turn with an attack dependent on how many specials are on board (which paired her greatly with 4* Rocket & Groot, who start the battle by placing strike tiles; some also use Beta Ray Bill, who places defense titles and even gives AP when they are matched).
  • Chasm is powerful in spite of a complex moveset, and has an automatic revive should the board have enough of his Abyss tiles. Sure enough, he was paired with Immortal Hulk to create a team that was hard to properly kill. And it got even worse once Immortal She-Hulk was a natural fit for a whole team of resurrective 5* characters.
• Game Play Derailment: In 2015, Avengers: Age of Ultron was heavily promoted by MPQ with the Avengers vs. Ultron PVE. Unfortunately, the game servers deny players access to the event for many hours, leading fans making a joke about how Ultron hacked the game servers.
• Goddamned Bats: Each type of enemy goon can prove annoying for different reasons:
  • Commander grunts have Moral eBoost, a two turn yellow countdown tile that heals all their allies for a good amount. It can be annoying, to say the least.
  • Kishu grunts have 3 suitably annoying abilities that can really add up. Smoke Bomb is a purple countdown tile that adds defense tiles to the enemy side. If more than one goes off, all damage from your team goes out the window. Ninja Trickery is bad because it will convert defense, strike, and attack tiles to enemy strike tiles, boosting their damage and making characters who rely on team tiles, like Daken, a slight liability. Finally Caltrops are cruel. They will place trap tiles, or tiles that activate when you match them, on random tiles throughout the board, and if you do anything to one of the trapped tiles aside from destroy them with an ability, they activate, dealing damage to the entire team. They deal little damage, but when they use it more than once, and they will, then only characters with good tile removal will be able to save you from massive team damage.
  • Symbiote grunts look squishy (in more ways than one), but their countdown tile abilities are cheap and have an effect every turn. They're especially annoying in wave battles, as they can place enemy benefit tiles that don't disappear when the grunt is defeated, making later waves with non-grunt enemies that much harder.
  • Ultron Drones are tile-movers, making fights more challenging; all their abilities are passive, which doesn't trigger Doctor Strange's Flames of the Faltine like with other goons; special tiles literally fall as they make matches; and their specials can compound the pain, as Fighters destroy the bottom of the board, forcing rethinking; and once there are enough specials (which again, spontaneously appear in their turns), the Flyers can heal the team and the Gunners can create Critical tiles for extra damage.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: 4* Star-Lord's The Oldest Trick In the Book has him going "Hey! Is that *?" before swinging in with a sucker-punch. Ever since his 2015 introduction, many of those distractions wound up leading to playable characters, namely Beta-Ray Bill, Alpha Flight (Northstar, Puck), and The Pet Avengers (first Lockjaw, and then Throg, who downright has an attack calling for said team's help). Taskmaster's version also has an example, as his highest level is "Hey! Is that Big Wheel?", who even became a 5 star character!
• Low-Tier Letdown: Along with the High-Tier Scrappy cases listed above on Game-Breaker:
  • One-Star Venom can only stun with his Symbiote Snare ability when it's maxed out, otherwise it does nothing more than creating Web Tiles.
  • 1* Yelena Belova's two abilities are too expensive to justify her a roster space of her own. Not to mention Modern Black Widow has far more viability compared to Yelena thanks to cheaper AP cost and superior utility (i.e. Widow Sting cost only 9 AP, and it stuns 5 turns to the enemy target).
  • Bagman Spiderman, or two star Spiderman, was meant to be more along the lines of a controlling character who was great against countdown tiles. Sadly, the Devs give him too little to work with, and he ended up having very little use outside of fights with grunts, who only use countdown tiles, and being mediocre at dealing with grunts specifically. Eventually he was taken out as a possible reward and during Deadpool's quest chain, Deadpool even points out nobody likes him.
  • Iron Man Model 40 has received flak from the players due to his red and blue abilities (Unibeam and Ballistic Salvo) draining too much friendly AP along with the cost being too high. Unibeam costs 13 red AP and drains 3 AP from other colors and Ballistic Salvo costs a whopping 20 AP and drains 3 AP from other colors too. In addition, Recharge became more expensive to use as more covers were added, leading to players deliberately capping it at 2 covers to use it at 6 AP.
    • Iron Man (Model 40) was reworked so that he no longer drains his own relevant attacking colors, blue and red, or green and purple (slightly random), making him more viable for simply because he can get out his own attacks more often. Recharge was also reworked to keep to a 6 AP cost regardless of covers, leading to him becoming one of the best AP generators in the game.
    • One note that should be made both Model 40 and Yelena make for great team ups, as even with their expense you can only have 3 one shot abilities during a match in the form of team-up abilities, and Unibeam and Payback Mission can both help immensely once you get enough team-up tiles to afford the cost.
  • Sentry damages himself and his teammates whenever he uses his own abilities. Unfortunately, the costs outweigh the benefits, which leads to Sentry being one of the worst 3 star characters since the nerf reduced his damage. Notably, when Broken Circle took over the game years later, they decided to rework Sentry to make him less of a hassle (Supernova no longer ends rounds, World Rupture costs less to be fired more, and Sacrifice creates two strong, fortified Strike tiles).
  • Carnage is the four star version. Out of his 3 abilities, two deal considerable damage to teammates, and one of those is a passive that fires off on ability use on either side. In a normal match, Carnage will put nearly an unmanageable amount of attack tiles for both sides on the field, during a fight with mooks, he can be the sole cause of a Teammates' death due to how many attack tiles he puts down for the enemy. It's supposed to balance out with higher damage to enemies, but when he's basically replacing the damage enemies would be doing by himself, he's just not worth the trouble. He still gets play due to having good partners in Medusa (who counters team damage by healing whenever the player's attack tiles are matched) and Kitty Pryde (makes the team's own attack tiles stronger while slowly taking out the enemy's).
  • Silver Surfer hasn't exactly able to outshine his more powerful five star peers such as Old Man Logan or Phoenix. To be fair, he is the very first five star character developed, so he can be considered as the test experiment of how to make five star characters even more desirable. This changed a bit with the balance updates, which boosted his power to levels that allow him to shine alongside his five star peers.
  • As Silver Surfer was rescued (at most there's the fact that early 5 stars lag behind the constant Power Creep of new characters), the most reviled 5 stars are two running on gimmicks, Bruce Banner (he only truly deals damage after Hulking Out, and that requires much green on the board and isn't immediate) and Wasp (her best power is expensive and only properly works if there are enough of the Swarm tiles the other two deploy). The devs eventually did a reworking of Banner in 2022 seeking to make him stronger and easier to play with.
  • Zig-zagged with Spider Man (Classic). At first he was pretty good, with a very, very cheep stun and the ability to heal other characters, as well as middling defensive boosts when you matched purple. But as healing abilities became more wide spread and his cheep stun lacked any real follow up other than improving said heal, as other stuns often coming with utilities for their higher cost, his abilities in general fell very far behind. Even for a support character Beast (Classic) is better for the role due to the ability to deal damage. It was reworked to stop healing... but in turn got a really damaging attack in When The Going's Tough in its place, making Spidey useful in another front.
  • Talos has been mocked since release, becoming the benchmark for a lame 4* given that his moveset has a useful but expensive stun and two useless moves that don't even deal direct damage.
  • The only 4* as hated as Talos is Emma Frost (to the chagrin of those who waited years for her arrival), introduced half a year prior. All her abilities are expensive, two of which are multi-turn repeaters that take two turns to give out something, and the third is not that helpful (fortifies special tiles while enhancing Emma's match damage). At least until Broken Circle reworked her in line with the 3* and 5* Emmas they were unveiling, reducing the cost of two abilities and making her cancel other characters' powers and immune to stun while with Diamond Skin, among other tweaks.
• Nightmare Fuel: Young Iceman is drawn in a way he looks like he came from a Japanese horror movie to some.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: A fair bit of the game could be this. One stars are a good example, not having bad abilities, but due to their poor level cap, they are being abandoned as soon as possible. Or even abilities.
  • Two Star Magneto. Iron Hammer is a really good skill that has the unique properties of destroying the board at max rank. Or he could have Polarity Shift and Magnetic Flux, with the former Feeding both of his other two abilities and helping control the board and the latter having only a one turn countdown at max rank, dealing hefty damage, and any tile is destroys is fed into his team's AP counter.
  • Black Widow (Grey). Her red ability, Pistol, is by no means bad. It's a slightly expensive red ability that will destroy an area of the player's choosing. On any other character that would be amazing at clearing out enemy hazards. But her Sniper Rifle, which cost a large amount of green while destroying a large amount of the board and dealing a large amount of damage (to the entire enemy team at max rank), and Deceptive Tactics, which will create a great number of green tiles on the board at the players choosing allowing them to both get green and control the board through match 4 line clearing, are just far too potent a combo to give up.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Quicksilver becomes much more viable every since his green ability generating a Locked Tile instead of a random Critical Tile. Because Quicksilver requires Locked Tiles to reduce his AP cost of his other abilities and triggering his blue passive Supersonic, he is now much faster than ever.
  • Iron Man (Mark 40) received flak from players for being too expensive with his abilities and reliant on Recharge to generate more AP. So the developers reduced the cost for Iron Man's blue and yellow abilities to make his character more viable as an AP-battery.
  • Amadeus Cho was widely hated by players for being unwieldy and unfun. Then came the balance updates, and his abilities were made infinitely better to the point where he's not only playable, he actually lives up to his title of 'Totally Awesome.'
  • Following the success of Iron Man and Amadeus Cho, Demiurge has started patching lower-tier characters to make them more useful, with several characters such as Star-Lord and Elektra noticeably benefiting.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Quicksilver suffers this in the three star roster due to his blue passive firing off uncontrollably whenever a blue match is made on any side. Supersonic locks up the Team-Up Tiles, thereby disrupting your own board control.
• That One Boss: Galactus has literally become a meme of its own thanks to the 5 turn player losses on the first run of his event, together with the infamous statement from the developers "You're supposed to lose"
  • Some of the souped-up versions in the Spider-Man vs. Sinister Six event are ridiculously overpowered.
  • Many a one-on-one boss, such as Vulture and Sandman in Battle at the Basilica and a few "Crash of the Titans" on Deadpool Daily Quest (either due to the adversary or the required character - such as Talos vs. Captain Marvel).
• Unexpected Character: Demiurge at times surprises the fanbase with characters that while featured in movies and shows are fairly minor (Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Hydra Stomper) or clearly meant to look like jokes - Throg, Frog of Thunder! Alligator Loki! And biggest of all, Big Wheel as a 5 star!