Too bad, but understandable. I find you to be one of the best team builders I've found in the realms, along with jonid. There's not one team that you have posted that I don't like.

I was going to ask for your advice on a winning team at 400 pts (we mostly play 400 here), but I understand that you don't want to show it!

Yep. With PC, giving him the full gauntlet isn't as essential. I posted earlier a team featuring him with 3 gems and 3 hydra techs.

But him with 4 gems, 2 hydra techs and a Footsoldier would be pretty great as well.

Him with 2 gems, Johann Schmidt and 2 AIM Renegades could be nasty. I love that JS gives adjacent Hydra TA people the SHIELD TA.

Awesome. I can't wait to see it win World's. But maybe Chaos War will change everything. If that's the case, it may be lost in the anals of time. Perhaps you should share so the at least it was considered by Realmsters.

You act like anyone on here is sharing anything they plan on playing at World's. Like this thread isn't a weird sort of the game that has people trying to convince anyone else to go with something posted here.

Let me address some things really fast.

The meta isn't going to change from what it is for Origin. But for Gencon it will open up. Metron/NC can take on Stranger teams but the Metron team will take the first hit unless Metron stalls witht the guantlet until he hits 2. Then Stranger has to attack before that point. Stranger can also crowd Metron with sacrficial AIM guys to stop single target pulse wave.

Runner is not meta. He needs to much help. Imperex is not meta because he is to easy to take down either by the run and gun teams and he can't crack the Stranger Barrier combo. Odin is to much of investment and his movement values are moderate. He can't run from Stranger or NC. Odin will only show up to Origins with a partial gauntlet and a nurse. Other then that he has no place past July outside of fun games. Chase Loki will not show up in high level meta inspite of all his silliness. He doesn't have staying power. Hulk is not meta as well because he is a high point investment that needs full gauntlet to compete and falls to the same problem that Imperex and Odin have against Stranger barrier teams.

Note. This doesn't stop them from doing well in the local meta but in the high end meta they are B grade at best.

Galactus on the other hand is a different story. Without multi-attack at 300 he is hurting a bit. He needs something other then mystics to get ahead.

Right now I see a three way split in the meta. That is gauntlet rush, Colossal, or TNT. I don't see a lot of teams going to roll off because agression is possible with all the meta teams right now. If 2 Stranger teams go against each other then the one who gets in range and is able to let his Aim Renegade bust down the barrier wall then follow up with a strong attack wins.

I will say beware of Thunderbolt Ross he is the game changer.

So doc fate destroys stranger as well as the gauntlet. Well you still get the stat bonus but still. He is going to be seen a lot I'm sure.

He doesn't "destroy" Stranger. And he doesn't do a thing to the gauntlet.

Ok I didn't mean that in a literal sense. He basically shuts down half of the reason that stranger is awesome which is the standard power he gets. And yes he does nerf the gauntlet. The second power on the gauntlet lets you use a standard power....but the second power is still a special power so no power from the gauntlet. The third power on the gauntlet is nerfed even worse. That special power lets you use all the gems and their effects. So while some gems don't require actions, the ones that do are now useless to you, plus no standard power, all you really have then is the stay boosts. It's nice but not the ultimate I win button it was.

However, he would not affect powers that do require an action to activate...such as PC.
I wonder if it would even affect powers that are couched with other powers, such as Flurry or Steal Energy.

ex: Stranger is 7 squares away from Doc Fate and chooses Charge with his 11 movement, chooses Flurry with his gauntlet on the SP 2...
How would that work? He is given the action to Charge outside of the 6 square range which also activates Flurry, but when he uses it, he is inside the 6 squares, but the action has already been given.

Just a thought.

I would assume that would work just fine as the action was given outside of range, have to post that in the rules section and find out. I don't think he is the end all be all but he certainly helps against the gauntlet IMO.

On second thought ; Charge would be fine...but Flurry wouldn't.

Fate is cool but I'd trade that Mystics in a heartbeat for 2 more clicks.

Yeah, Flurry is a free action given during the power action. Thought about that when went to bed. I think Steal Energy would work, though.

Fate is too many points to be solid. He shuts down special powers, sure, but not everyone relies totally on special powers, and he has a relatively short dial for 100 points. He is certainly a good figure but I think takes too up too large a chunk of a team to be competitive at high levels.

Isn't being given a free action still being given an action? For instance, if you had the an opposing Question within range of Dr. Fate, could Question outwit? No, right? If that's the case I'd say no on the flurry.

You are correct after the moment portion of charge you give the character a free action for a close combat action to use flurry and Dr fate wouldn't allow it because activating flurry requires a free action and free action is still an action