Welcome back to MSF Mondays! Each week we break down one more aspect of the hottest mobile game, Marvel Strike Force! Today we’re talking about the new details on unlocking Apocalypse through the new Horsemen Sagas!
Finally, after the initial announcement of Apocalypse coming to Marvel Strike Force, we have more concrete details on how his unlock method is actually going to work. We’ve been grinding through the new Scourge Events, hopefully unlocking Morgan Le Fay and Rogue, leaving two Horsemen remaining to fill out the team.
Apocalypse will require these four Horsemen, and others, to join your roster. However, just having these toons isn’t enough. You’ll need to participate in the new Apocalypse Saga, which will be added to Dark Dimension under a new tag on the home screen: Epic Campaigns. In short, you’ll need to complete a Saga for each of the four Horsemen, and then a final Saga with its own unique requirements.
Here are the requirements for each of the Sagas. You’ll notice that this is why the Scourge Events are so important, as they lay the groundwork and blueprint for earning the right to use Apocalypse:
- Pestilence Saga – Morgan Le Fay and four Darkhold characters (Agatha Harkness, Wong, Doctor Strange (Heartless), and Scarlet Witch)
- Famine Saga – Rogue and four Unlimited X-Men characters (Gambit, Fantomex, Sunfire, and Dazzler)
- War Saga – Red Hulk and four Gamma characters (Abomination, Brawn, Hulk, and She-Hulk )
- Death Saga – Death Horseman (TBA) and four other characters (TBA)
- Apocalypse Saga – All Four Horsemen, their respective teams, and several additional characters
This is definitely endgame content worthy of your attention. If you play consistently, you’ll be in really good shape for the Sagas when they’re released. These Sagas have three different difficulties, with the first requiring Gear Tier 13, Difficulty 2 requiring Gear Tier 15, and Difficulty 3 requiring Gear Tier 17.
Oh yes, even though the Teal Gear crunch is sooooo real, a new Gear Tier is on the way in the near future. Hopefully there will be a better way to grind that Teal Gear besides Doom raids, but I’m not holding my breath.
To actually earn the Apocalypse unlock, you’ll need to beat Difficulty 2. If you can manage Difficulty 3, you’ll get him at 7 Yellow Stars and some Red Stars.
My favorite part is that the Sagas will unlock their own unique rewards, such as Awakened Abilities, dedicated Horseman Costumes, and Ixo-8 Blue Level 5 Ions and Crystals. I’ve been saying for a long time that it would be so awesome for there to be costumes that could only be used if a character is being used with other characters on a specific team, and my wish has been granted!
As far as Awakened Abilities go, these are reminiscent of the Empowered trait. The main difference is that the Awakened Abilities are unlockable and they augment and change the existing character’s abilities. They don’t use any of the verbiage like ‘when this character becomes Awakened’.
Just looking at the preview for Morgan Le Fay’s Awakened Abilities, she is going to be even more of a stud on her team. These abilities are what also give the bonuses to the other Horseman allies on the team, not just their base squad (like Unlimited X-Men, etc).
Even though this whole Apocalypse unlock method is the longest grind in the game to-date, I appreciate that it presents me with a focus on what I need to work towards exactly. I don’t need to guess whether certain toons should be buffed or not; I can just focus on leveling the toons that get me closer to Apocalypse. You don’t need to power up all the toons for the specific Scourges, just focus on one or two of the required team tags.
Some people probably don’t like this, and I can see some of the reasons why. First, it takes away theory-crafting and testing team synergies in a sandbox. Toons are generally best on their own teams.
Secondly – and this is the big one – you really can’t afford to miss these unlocks if you want to get Apocalypse right away when he’s available. Even missing just one toon can cost you. And I totally agree here; it feels bad that if something comes up that forces you to miss a toon, you’re out of luck until you can figure out a way to get that toon. And with the snail’s pace that Scopely is making toons accessible, we might have to wait for a good long while.
In any case, this has definitely been an exciting time to be a fan of Marvel Strike Force. Lots of fun teams are being released, and soon Apocalypse will be on our doorstep! The doomsday clock is ticking!
And now I’ll close this out with things to watch out for this week in Marvel Strike Force:
- Blitz: Shang-Chi
- Legendary Event: None
- Character Events: Summer of Thunder, Space Viking
- Other Events: Chaos Theory Flash Event (July 22nd), Cosmic Crucible Leagues
Well I hope this helps you take your Squad from a D+ to a B- Commander!
Previous Installments
You can check out all of our other Marvel Strike Force articles right here! We try to put out a new article every Monday, so stay tuned for even more content.
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