When you are first navigating the MCOC waters, you will ultimately make a few costly mistakes.
Luckily, I’ve scoured the Internets, the world-wide webs, the multiverse, and Uranus to put together the Top 5 Mistakes Marvel Contest of Champions players consistently make.
Full disclosure, I’ve made each of these mistakes, not because I’m an idiot, although that’s arguable, but because I had zero guidance.
Now that you have this guide I can guarantee your account will progress at a more efficient rate than mine ever did.
Top 5 Beginner’s Mistakes
Let’s take a look at 5 most common mistakes that you can make in Marvel Contest of Champions as an beginner.
#1 Using Units on Premium Hero Crystals
Don’t do it! The number one BIGGEST noob mistake the MCOC community reports in Forums and Reddit is spending hard earned units on Premium Hero Crystals AKA PHC’s.
I did it myself and I was able to pull an occasional 3 Star champ and a rare 4 Star champ, but honestly, I NEVER even use my 3 Star champs, and rarely use my 4 Star champs.
With the addition of 6 Star champs, the 5 star champ is the new 4* champ, the 4* champ is the new 3* champ, and the 3* is now… You get the picture. So don’t invest your units into something that won’t provide solid, long-term value.
Especially when you will need a TON of units to unlock your strongest masteries, which does provide long-term value.
Furthermore, your chances of even scoring a 4* champ are around 1%. See below for some actual hard data.
Case Study 1: Me
Out of the 850 PHC’s I opened on my 1st account I recorded the following:
- 774 PHC’s = 2 Star Champs (91%)
- 68 PHC’s = 3 Star Champs (8%)
- 8 PHC’s = 4 Star Champs (1%)
Case Study 2: Redditor
I compared my numbers to another individual on Reddit to increase the sample size.
Below is what this Redditor member pulled after opening 1570 PHC’s… 1570! Nice job recording this, dude!
I have a spreadsheet of my last 1570 PHC opens. From what I can tell its about 90% for 2 star, 9% for 3 star, and 1% for 4 star. The exact numbers I have are 1417 2 star, 136 3 star, and 17 4 star. Started keeping track because early on I had a streak of over 400 with no 4 star.
Reddit Dude — Link Above
I promise, once you join a solid alliance that participates in daily events, war and alliance quests, PHC’s will be flowing like the salmon of Capistrano. Just make sure you join the right alliance, which brings me to number two.
#2 Not Joining an Alliance
Once you start an account and go through all the blah blah blah beginner info stuff, find yourself an alliance, stat!
Just make sure you are joining an alliance where the members participate in Events, Alliance Quests (AQ), and War so you can actually score some great rewards.
I think it’s imperative to search for the actual alliance, instead of just doing an Auto-Join.
SIDE NOTE: I Auto-Joined once and found myself in a Spanish speaking alliance, and while Gabriel and I are now my homies for life, the language barrier AND the fact they were 9 hours ahead of me made the alliance difficult to survive.
Instead, Search Alliances for your next home.
Then look for the following criteria after you click on a potential alliance, because these attributes typically signify a solid home ripe with rewards if you participate.
- The Alliance requires you to participate in War and Alliance Quests;
- Alliance has a War Rating and the Last Season is Bronze or above;
- The Average Member Rating is higher than your current rating;
- BONUS: The Members are chatting regularly, or they require you to join a free chat app like Line, Discord, or ClanHQ.
QUICK TIP: Join a semi-retired alliance as they typically have some heavy hitters and regularly win great War and AQ rewards.
Sure, your account is not ballin’ at this point, and you will likely be the lowest man/woman on the totem pole, but if you contact the leader/officers and let them know you want to learn, they might let you join.
Then you can take advantage of their knowledge and those sweet sweet shards.
Best places to search are Reddit and the MCOC Forums for these types of retired alliances.
#3 Selling MCOC Champions
I used to sell my champs all day, errrday. Especially, quite a few 3 Star and 4 Star champs. HUGE mistake!
I hate to admit this, but I sold a 4* Thor, a 4* Wolverine, AND a 4* Magik because I was very close to pulling a 5* Champ and as I alluded to earlier, I am, in fact, an id*ot.
It was a rookie mistake that I regret to this day, because my Magik sale lead to a 5*… Hulkbuster.
Hold onto ALL champions. Why you ask? Well, once you dupe a champ their signature ability will be unlocked, which means they obtain new abilities and you get Class ISO-8, Gold, and Crystal Shards.
The more champs you collect, the greater your chances for duping those champs, plus you’ll get all that aforementioned stuff.
Aside from unlocking a champs signature ability, here’s a quick breakdown of what each Duped Star will get you…
- 1 Star Duped: Nada
- 2 Star Duped: 100 Gold | 1x T2 Class ISO-8 | 2x T3 Class ISO-8 | 55 3* Star Shards
- 3 Star Duped: 326 Gold | 2x T5 Class ISO-8 | 55 4* Shards
- 4 Star Duped: 1163 Gold | 24x T5 Class ISO-8 | 275 5* Shards
- 5 Star Duped: 1163 Gold | 24x T5 Class ISO-8 | 275 6* Shards
- 6 Star Duped: 1163 Gold | 24x T5 Class ISO-8
Secondly, sometimes Kabam will release quests where they have champion gating.
Meaning, certain events or quests might require certain star champs in order to finish said event.
For instance, you will need 1 Star Champions (namely Hulk) for Variant Quest 4 – Waning Moon to pass it without breaking the unit bank.
So, even though 1 star champs seem worthless, DO NOT sell them under any circumstances.
Finally, you never know when Kabam might decide to buff Kamala Khan, Joe Fixit, or Falcon and all the sudden they are god-tier champs?
#4 Not Adding Mastery Points Into Your Mastery Tree
Many first time MCOC’ers have fallen victim to disregarding their mastery tree.
When first starting out, many of you will be heavily focused on the Story aspect of the game, so you will be earning experience, gaining gold, picking-up iso, etc.
After you earn enough experience you “level-up” and when you hit Level 6, you gain your first Mastery Point! See that annoying circular Red 1 near your profile pic?
Now, click on your profile pic and select “Mastery.”
And now, the Mastery Tree displayed as Offense, Defense, and Proficiencies!
Don’t get overwhelmed, I’ve put together the best mastery set-up for your first 13 Mastery Points, below.
Just trust me on this one and make sure once you reach Level 9 you are adding a point into Parry and once you reach Level 11 you are adding a point into Dexterity (or Evade).
Unfortunately, to unlock Dexterity you will need two Stony Cores (270 Units Total – 135 Units Each).
Luckily, you aren’t spending units on PCH’s so you should be covered on this front, right?
SIDE NOTE: It’s my strong opinion that the most important masteries in the game are Parry and Dexterity.
These masteries will allow you to take on much stronger champs throughout each level of the game and will dramatically change the way you fight for the better.
Unlock these and you unlock a lot of the game’s toughest hurdles.
In future articles I will go into greater depth about putting together the BEST mastery set-up for your squad, but for now, just make sure you are actually adding points to your Mastery Tree.
#5 Fighting Buffed Nodes in War and AQ
Ever been completely destroyed by a weak sauce champ in war or AQ?
The ONLY reason that happened was you just fought a buffed node, or you need to beef up on your brawling skillz.
So, another mistake I made was absent-mindedly fighting a buffed node and getting a beat down from a champ that had zero business KO’n me.
Since I believed I was a legendary brawler and was just having an off fight, I went back in again and all the sudden my three champs are KO’d in the first part of the AQ map.
Now I’m stuck Ubering my team to the bosses instead of brawling with them.
See, the game wants to ensure you are working as a team to complete an objective.
For instance, if I don’t take out Node 5, and someone on my team decides to attack Node 7 and Node 17, they will have to fight a two Cosmic Champs that gain power by 100%.
SO, press that blue catalyst button (bottom right) to make sure you aren’t running head first into a barrage of buffed-up champs and be patient, if you are in a solid alliance, someone will debuff those nodes in no time!
Other Noob Mistakes
Of course, there are a lot more MCOC noob mistakes we can list here, such as not grinding arena for champs when you are in the beginner brackets, spending too much/any time in Global Chat, using Awakening Gems on undeserving champs, using MCOC abbreviations incorrectly, etc.
Consider the mistakes I listed above as Tier 1 and all the other mistakes as Tier 2.
With that said, I would love to hear about some of your noob mistakes in the comments below. After all, I admitted to selling a Magik, Wolverine, and Thor.
