Intro to Team Construction Theory

In the past few months I've gotten really into the idea of breaking down team chemistry as it stands in Marvel into some kind of a loose formula. There's a lot of variables in the game when it comes to what teams work and why, so that's as good a place as any to start.

First off, there's a few different styles of teams. The most well rounded (in terms of chemistry) is a team like Mag/Storm/Sent. With this team, you've got a combination of 3 God Tier characters where each can function on point benefiting from the other's assists very well. In terms of options that you have at any given time, with any given character, the team interaction just feels natural. Now, some of this effectiveness lays in the potency of these characters as individual threats, but there are Low Tier examples as well. For instance, Mega-man/Son-son (proj)/Ken AA. You have to work harder to get it done (individual characters lack the solo versatility of the Gods), but the 3-way chemistry is there.

The second type of team is one like Sent/Storm/CapCom. Here's a squad that has very good chemistry for 2/3 of its team. In other words, Sent and Storm love having each other as an assist, but they realllly love Commando's Anti-air. At first glance, somebody new to the game might be thinking that this team setup would be inferior to one that's got the above-mentioned 3-way interaction. This isn't necessarily true, because with a well-designed team, you can have a 2-way interaction that is SO GOOD that it can swing it with any team, any time. In this case, even though CapCom isn't able to go toe-to-toe with Top Tiers solo, his assist function is so to Sent/Storm that it justifies his sub-par point-play. MSP is another great example of this.

The third type of team interaction is a team like Sent/Strider/Doom. This team is all about Strider/Doom. A fully-functioning Sent is absolutely necessary, but your Robot is there to set up the S/D lock-down. S/D is an example of a team interaction based upon one point character that is SO BEASTLY that it's worth running despite the fact that the rest of the team doesn't function as anything resembling a cohesive unit. Notice that even though the characters that aren't optimized in terms of chemistry are Sent/Doom (i.e. not bad characters), they still lack the kind of chemistry that a really well-built team has. This is why, as great as Sent or Doom can play solo, your average S/D team will drop if the other player can either, 1.) kill Strider or, 2.) nullify Doom's effectiveness with a proper counter assist. Either way, they take away the one great piece of chemistry that is the backbone to the team.

It's interesting to observe how the potential effectiveness (another way to think about it is "brokenness") of a given team can both raise or lower as you add chemistry to the equation, depending on what you're looking for in a team. For instance, with MSS, you get solid team interaction in terms of assists, DHC ability, and general functionality. SSC you get a really nice thing going with Sent/CapCom and Storm/CapCom, as well as bits and pieces of really good Sent/Storm and Storm/Sent interaction-- namely that killer DHC from Lightning Storm to Hyper Sentinel Force. And with the last type of team, SSD, you get unparalleled interaction between Strider/Doom that can snuff out any other team if you are on your game and can stay one step ahead of your opponent.

On the other side of the coin, while SSD has a beastly chemistry between Strider/Doom lockdown pressure, it's the easiest type of team to shut down, because if you stop Doom, you kill a huuuge part of the team's effectiveness. With SSC, CapCom is the weakest link, but when you take him out, you've still got to handle the toughest, most versatile duo in the game. With MSS, take your pick; remove one element and like SSC, you've still got to deal with a God-Tier duo.

Understanding Team Chemistry isn't just important to think about when building up a team-- it's even more important to consider when fighting a particular team. If you know the chemistry, you know how to shut it down.

More in the next couple days.

ECZ