I've done ok with these Flash teams in modern:

WL Flash
Superman 150 SM
(I was using nurse but cosmic cube fits nicely)

WL Flash
Thanos GG SR
(Cosmic cube or nurse)

and if you want Flash with gauntlet,

WL Flash w/gauntlet and Soul gem.
FF Supergirl
A.I.M. Renegade
Astral Strange

I've switched out the renegade for Cypher, roulette, and others but the renegade fits my play style. renegade buys you time to clear and/or spin gauntlet.

Other popular WL Flash teams are

WL Flash
Nightcrawler
either with gauntlet

WL Flash
WOS Bullseye
either with gauntlet


WL Flash is awesome, his one and only setback is that you cant push him once without landing on that horrible second click. This is easy to work around most of the time though!

Yay! You got the three hundredth post. You win a chicken dinner!

It could've been me...

Played the Stranger and 2 aim renegades the other night in out local cutthroat game. Gave the stranger the gauntlet with time gem. The team did extremely well. Especially against anything with only one attacker. Barrier in the corner let me get to the gauntlet powers 2 or 3 way before my opponent every game and choosing regen and colossal size on his second click let me stay on it until I was ready to drop the barrier. Plus If they came up on me i got a psychic blast with prob(usually) with 2 enhancement. Nasty team will see some serious time I think. I only lost to Hulk 255 point from AVM with full gauntlet. I managed to only hit him once and he SS out of it and I missed every single impervious or SS roll. I still like this team a lot.

Here is what you have to do. Hold out until you can name a power. Next get your Aim guys away even if they push. Then select running shot and then pulsewave. You will crush Hulk with a 5-6 damage pulse wave.

I used Stranger over the weekend too. When you get to power 3 he has 11 attack, 19 defense, 5 damage, perplex, impervious, collosal/giant, any 2 powers you want, range combat expert, steal energy, super senses, incap (I had him with 3 gems), power cosmic. I felt bad almost. It was insane.

Just wanted to post a quick update, about the Cyborg+Tony Stark team I posted earlier.

This weekend with that team I beat (Played by good players)

Galactus

Stranger w/IG and Tarot

FF Bizzarro w/IG and Mole Man and Tarot


All three were really good games. Turning Tony Stark into the running shot see through stealth outwitting psychic blasting Iron Man late game is really clutch. And Cyborg does what he does.

My new difficulty is stealth. It can be a bit of a problem with Cyborg, and exactly why you need the FULL IG on him. If someone can hide and outwit him he is nowhere near as effective.

Aside from dealing with Stealth and Mystics, That Cyborg team is brutal.

lol indeed. Stranger is a strategists dream come true.

Also, as Darklogos pointed out, when played correctly Stranger should beat Hulk most of the time.

In a timed setting, Hulk may come out on top by just simply killing a renegade or 2 followed by non abusive slow play.

As long as the stranger player is competent, Hulk with gauntlet shouldn't be a problem.

Biggest problem with Hulk is he needs the full gauntlet or else he gets outwitted and loses. Hulk with gauntlet is insane but melee dps is the easiest to outwit in the game.

Yeah, after all this talk of teams, Stranger is still my number one as well. I see him having a huge representation at Gencon since he is such a strategic piece adaptable to any situation. I do like the renegades idea, but the best team I have running right now is Stranger + Tarot. You play conservatively and get in hits where you can but making sure to be defensive enough to live till 2. It isn't quite as "TNT" as double barrier but more healing options as well as all the other powers tarot brings makes stranger a force to be reckoned with.

As a side note, not really appropriate to this thread, but since we are talking about stranger, I'm running a team at a local venue for a 300 Golden Age event which requires at least 1 "kid" keyworded fig on the team.

Stranger + 25 pt IG + Shellhead + Auto Regen + Inside Information
Leech
299

Stranger, Shellhead, Gauntlet, Auto Regen is the most evil thing I've come up with in a while for golden age. Colossal Stamina lets you keep the tokens on nearly indefinitely for permanent +2 defense, can choose to pick regen as a power to regen as a free action then either run away or regen again...Inside info is just icing against "cosmic" and "scientist" based figs...so crazy...

I see where Stranger is good. But his Colossal/Pushing every turn to turn the gauntlet while using Regen strategy, could stall out a bit if he runs into a really good SR Thanos team. Bye bye Regen.

How do you deal with that?

Don't go every turn, then. You lose that advantage (of speed-turning the dial) but you are still a threat.

Yea I actually played against a Thanos and I just didn't use that strategy. Thanos couldn't catch me. I pushed to my 2nd click, which got me the lead on the gauntlet race. I then used HSS to take shots and thanos and run.

Unless your gauntlet rolls go awful, you can still push 1 time and gain the gauntlet advantage on Thanos. From there you just play hit and run until you get to where you choose 2 powers. Then you just running shot/pulse wave or psych blast and it's game over.

It takes more strategy to beat Thanos, as it should, but without Thanos having move/attack - and you having it on your 2nd click, it's not bad.

Okay, I just thought of this team. Don't know how well it would fare against other teams, but it could do well against that Stranger team I think.

Thanos SR 150pts
Earth Man 98pts
Cosmo 52pts

300pts

Now, you can't heal, and Stranger can't use any speed powers thanks to Earth Man. And you have two TK'ers if Earth Man uses his Attack power while adjacent to Cosmo, assuming Cosmo still has TK.

I don't know how well this team would fare, but on paper it looks to be pretty good against that Stranger team. Thoughts?

Looks like it's a pretty good counter to Stranger. Not sure how great it would do against other meta level teams. Earth Man could use RS/Psych blast borrowing it from Thanos though, which is effective. Cosmo helps with enhance/PD. You can TK thanos out, attack, then TK him back. Not sure I like a gauntletless team - but it looks like it could be solid if played right.

I'd want to see how it does against other teams besides the Stranger one, but just looking it over, it would seem to take Stranger down a few pegs.

Thinking it over more I think I would attempt to still spin the gauntlet with stranger. When I got to 2 or 3, and hope to be able to outwit your special power, then would open myself up to be able to use HSS or RS. I mean all of it is hypothetical, I'd like to see it played out.

And the team with the AIM renegades would probably have extra outwits when they push to get it. If both players had the same skill I think it would be a really good match to see. Both sides would have to play near perfect games.

SR Thanos simply is not good at 300 pt games. He has no mobility and a very short dial, low defense numbers, and starting invuln. Yes, his trait is good against some teams (like Stranger at times) but he would get utterly destroyed by other meta teams.

As for the strict Thanos vs Stranger encounter, I've never had any problems with Thanos due to his lack of mobility. Earth man could throw a wrench into Stranger's ability to move and attack, but Earth man cant push without losing running shot, so Stranger can make use of his ability to act every turn (despite not being able to heal back up) to out-action thanos and earth man. Granted you cant theory out a whole game but I don't think either my Stranger + 40 pt IG + Tarot team or the other Stranger + Renegades team would have any problems taking out thanos, even with Earth Man.

Edit: After re-reading the Earth Man team, I hadn't realized theres no gauntlet. Stranger just runs around until he hits 2 then wins, game over. No gauntlet = not serious meta