To say that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has swallowed me whole would be an understatement. The game is less than 2 months old, and I’ve already spent over 50 hours with it, having played over 1,000 online matches in the process. While there are potentially thousands of different ways to assemble the 38 characters into a three-character team, I found a team that worked for me close after the game’s release and have stuck with it since. In a game where team mechanics are critical, having spent a lot of time practicing one particular team that fits my style has helped me tremendously.
Though I’m still experimenting with new teams every time I play, this is currently my main team.
Wolverine/Morrigan/Sentinel
If I were to say that I came up with this team without any sort of outside influence, that would be a total lie. I started playing as Wolverine after watching Justin Wong’s Wolverine obliterate his Wednesday Night Fights competition. I then picked up Sentinel when everyone thought he was the most broken character in the game. Of the three, the only character I truly picked up on my own was Morrigan. Before I even added Wolverine or Sentinel, I fell in love with her play-style and wanted to build around that. Though I’ve run into a number of Wolverine/Sentinel teams, I have yet to play anyone with this particular team.
Team Objective
Say what you will about the robot, this team really revolves around the Wolverine and Morrigan rush down. In a perfect world, I use Wolverine as my point person to rush down, use Sentinel to constantly fire drones, and have Morrigan use her Shadow Blade assist for anti-air/get-off-me purposes. When I have all three characters available to me, I constantly fire the drones and use Wolverine’s mobility to set my opponents up for high-low or cross-up mix-ups. Once I get an opening, I let rip the largest combo available to me. In the event of a bad match-up for Wolverine, I swap in Morrigan on point and the objective stays the same. If all else fails, Sentinel is my anchor, who can easily blow out an entire team by himself.
Team Strengths
+ Well-rounded team that can handle almost any character-specific match-up
+ Great rush down ability
+ No shortage of meter-building
+ All hyper combos are useful
+ Good team combo potential
+ Ability to DHC in many different situations
+ Great mix-up capability
Team Weaknesses
– Weak projectile ability
– Weak zoning ability
– No beam projectile assist
– Below-average health
Wolverine (Assist: Beserker Charge)
Wolverine is the heart of my team. When I have him on point, I’m looking to get into my opponent’s face and stay there. With the Sentinel assist, I’m able to set up a lot of tricky situations that are difficult for my opponents to block, either by using the Beserker Slash or any other move to keep the pressure on. When I get that opening, I go for the Wolverine bread-and-butter relaunch combo for max damage. Thanks to his pressure and mix-up game, Wolverine can really set the tone of a fight from the get-go and keep it that way. Ideally, I’d take out my opponent’s entire team with Wolverine before Morrigan or Sentinel have to run the point position.
He’s a basic character by MvC3 standards, but I think his tool set works awesome for my style of play. The only glaring weakness to me that Wolverine has is that he has a really hard time getting in against opponents with beam projectiles or facing off against some of the heavy-hitters with hyper armour (I’m looking at you, Hulk).
Morrigan (Assist: Shadow Blade)
At this point in the game’s life cycle, Morrigan is not a popular character, which is great news for me. I find that a lot of my opponents have no idea how to deal with her. While her special moves are alright, her two most dangerous traits in my opinion are her dash and her drill kick. Her unique dash causes her to temporarily fly, which gives her an added layer of mobility that no one else in the game has. As for her drill kick (jump S), it hits as an overhead, can cross-up and must be blocked three times in order to avoid taking damage from it. The latter trait of the drill kick makes it an excellent weapon against characters with hyper armour, as the kick will usually go right through. In unison, I use the dash to set up the drill kick, which then opens the door for big combos.
Normally, I will try and rush my opponents down with Morrigan, but she has the ability to zone with her fireballs and flight if necessary. In cases where my opponent’s character puts Wolverine at a disadvantage, Morrigan can usually handle it fine.
Sentinel (Assist: Sentinel Force Charge)
Sentinel is by far the weak link on my team. Sure, he has amazing damage potential, but he has some glaring weaknesses that people are further exposing every day, not to mention the fact that he got massively nerfed not too long ago. It also doesn’t help that my abilities as a Sentinel player pale in comparison to my abilities with the other two. Outside of the basic Sentinel bread-and-butter combo, there’s not much else I can do with him. In a perfect world, I would only use him for his drone assist, which greatly improves Wolverine and Morrigan’s ability to mix-up my opponents.
However, when the chips are down, it’s hard to say no to Sentinel. Sure, landing that first hit is getting harder and harder as people figure out how to fight against him. However, people make mistakes, and Sentinel really only needs you to make one mistake before he kills your character in one combo. I’ve come back from a ton of deficits thanks to Sentinel, which has infuriated many of my opponents to no end. I have the XBOX Live hate messages to prove it.
Maybe my team would be better if I gave up the brute power of Sentinel and replaced him with someone that better balances my team, but right now he works within the context of finishing off DHCs or standing in as the anchor.
I’ve shared mine, now it’s time you share yours. Who do you have on your Marvel vs. Capcom 3 team and why?
In Third Person 
I just make up teams considering the charisma of the different characters rather than actual strategy, because that’s what this game was made to do since launch, it’s about having fun and inducing epileptic seizures with sudden flashes of awesome!
I use Dante, Spidy and Hulk. Spidy for agility, Hulk for strength and Dante for looking good…. Like I said no strategy…..
You are entitled to make any team you like based on any criteria you want. You are also entitled to approach the game any way you like, whether you have fun from the flashiness or from the strategy.
I’m glad your not offended by my insolence when it comes to fighting games but people on forums and youtube comment sections will tear you apart with insults. Apparently it’s like their religion or something, great to see that people like you still have an open mind on the learning curve associated with these games.
P.S. Jett could you please talk about Kratos in the new Mortal Kombat?
Fighting game enthusiasts take their fighting games extremely seriously. I am definitely one of those enthusiasts. However, it’s a general life policy of mine to not press my personal beliefs on others. You can do whatever you want with your copy of the game and as long as you’re happy with it, then that’s cool in my books. I actually did talk about Kratos in Mortal Kombat when it was first announced:
https://thirdpersonblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/kratos-is-playable-in-mortal-kombat-9-as-a-playstation-3-exclusive/
*Face palm* sorry I haven’t actually been around this site for a while I didn’t know.
And on the matter of being inexperienced with fighting games, if only you could see me play, you would get so incredibly offended….
Considering the video you linked me to….. well played Jett, well played…
Hmmm, not a bad team, to be honest. Sentinel’s nerf really hurts…well, anyone who relies on Sentinel for damage, and considering that the team already has low health, that doesn’t help at all. I feel like this team could get pretty raped by Amaterasu; the Amaterasu matchups against these characters are, as far as I know, pretty favored in Ammy’s direction, especially against Sentinel.
Also, it seems like no one on this team really abuses Morrigan’s ability to get tons of meter very quickly, as both Wolverine and Sentinel can do a lot without much meter at all. That’s why I’ve seen a lot of Morrigan/Phoenix combinations lately because of how easy it is with Morrigan to get 5 meters for Phoenix to abuse not too long after.
My current team as of late has been Amaterasu/Deadpool/Dormammu. Amaterasu is a terrific point character that has a huge number of combos, can camp characters hard, has at least some sort of air dash, and can reset into more combos rather easily. Plus, she can also abuse Deadpool’s off-the-ground assist to make combos longer. In his own right Deadpool, is a really stellar, yet underrated pick, as he too can both rush down and camp if need be. Also, he’s badass. Dormy rounds it out with straight camping and abusing X-Factor, as throwing out black pools and flame puddles can easily combo into his supers, and then reset, without much effort.
Great blog entry, by the way, and check out mine if you don’t mind. I just wrote about the Shuma-Gorath and Jill Valentine DLC.
Excellent comment Dakota!
I’ve never really relied on Sentinel for the damage. I use him mainly for the assist to make the Wolverine and Morrigan rush down safer and to open up mix-up opportunities for them. If Sentinel is my last character standing and I’m fighting someone with anti-Sentinel strategies, I’m screwed unless I can land the first hit. If I do land that first hit, then it’s game over, but it’s a big gamble to take now that the damage nerf is in place.
Yes, as I have discovered almost on a nightly basis, Amaterasu owns this particular team hard. I have a few specific tricks to fend Amaterasu off, but the key for my team is to:
1) Maximize every damage opportunity I open up and
2) Make sure Sentinel is not the only person left when Amaterasu is on the screen
I used to use the Morrigan meter assist, but it didn’t really fit the chemistry of my team. Woloverine and Sentinel can build their own meter and don’t really need much to get by, which sort of made the meter assist a moot point. Instead, I use the uppercut to get people off me or to set up cross-over mix-ups.
My secondary team is actually Deadpool/Dormammu/Doom, so I sort of understand the chemistry you have going there. I sort of still play this team like Wolverine/Morrigan/Sentinel, where Deadpool and Dormammu are the main focus of the team, with Doom backing up mainly for his plasma beam assist. I find that this particular team does much better against Amaterasu (Dormammu flame carpet in particular) as the carpet basically shuts down all of the charging normal moves when it’s active.
I’ll definitely check out your blog later today!
That’s a pretty solid team you have there.
I use Dr. Doom, Chris R and V. Joe as my main team.
Doom was a given, he was one of my favorite villains and in this game his projectiles are too good in my opinion. They allow me to zone my opponents and make them move where i want them to.
Chris was a character I was skeptical about but he’s saved me in a couple of tight spots because of his rather wide fighting style. I also find it incredibly funny when my character dies and Chris comes in with his combination punch for easy damage.
Joe was another character I had my doubts about. I originally picked him to piss my friend off but now I see he’s got quite a bit of potential if used correctly.
Thanks for the comment BlackLotus!
Interesting team you have. Out of those 3, I have the most experience with Doom, some with Chris, and I’m only now starting to mess with Viewtiful Joe. I love Dr. Doom in theory, but my Dr. Doom is pretty bad. His movement and magic series are awkward for me. Joe is also underrated. Flash Metroid has the best Viewtiful Joe I’ve seen so far, and he’s bananas.
Do you play them in that order? Also, what assists do you use for each?
For Chris I use the combination punch
For Doom I use hidden missile
and for Joe I use voomerang
I play Doom first, then chris then Joe
Interesting mix. My general philosophy is to have Dr. Doom either 2nd or 3rd (preferably 3rd) on any team, because he has some of the best assists in the game, and having him up first limits his ability to take advantage of those assists. Not to say that you’re wrong for arranging the team the way you do, because your arrangement may very well be the best fit for your play style.
If I may ask out of curiousity, what is your strategy behind using Doom first and Joe last?