There are 12 Midnight Suns characters, and though you can make best friends with all of them through the many hangouts and conversations that punctuate the campaign, you’ll face tougher choices putting together a three-hero kickball team that can defeat Hydra.
You’ll want to use each of Midnight Suns’ heroes on at least a few missions in order to unlock and upgrade some of their cards, particularly heroes like Wolverine and Ghost Rider who have less-than-great starting decks.
Some of these characters are unlocked later in the campaign, so we’ve placed those in a special “spoiler” section at the end if you want to preserve these reveals (which Midnight Suns telegraphs pretty strongly, in my opinion).
Certain characters play off one another better than others, and what type of mission you’re facing is absolutely a consideration. But over the course of my 50-plus hours, I found the most general success in this team comp:
💪 A bruiser who has 2+ cards that inflict triple-digit damage on heavy enemies
🦸♀️ A support character who can trigger powerful status effects or prevent damage
🔀 A hero who either specializes in knockback or clearing out zero-HP minions that arrive as reinforcements
Note: For each hero’s “Best card,” I’m excluding Legendary cards which are obviously powerful. You’ll probably want to run those no matter what.
The early-game Midnight Suns characters
HunterGhost RiderNico MinoruCaptain MarvelDoctor StrangeMagikIron ManSpider-Man (unlocked early)Captain America (unlocked early)Wolverine (unlocked a little later)
The best Midnight Suns characters
Hunter
Pros: The largest and most adaptable deck in the game; several dual-use heal or hurt cards; powerful unique abilities like Mindbreaker
Cons: Composing a synergistic deck isn’t as straightforward as the other heroes
Best cards: Guarding Strike (free heal just by remaining in your hand, but a moderately powerful attack too); Holy Spark (Quick, but can also cure allies)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Nico Minoru
Pros: Very high damage ceiling; big heals; final passive draws cards
Cons: High risk, high reward; starting cards like Curse and Empower aren’t great
Best cards: Witchfire (Damage a random enemy, recasts on KO); Blood For Blood (triggers heal on a KO)
A-tier Midnight Suns characters (Great)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Iron Man
Pros: Versatile; his Quick abilities also carry knockback; many of his abilities are enhanced by redraw
Cons: True to his egotistic personality, his deck doesn’t synergize much with other heroes
Best cards: Quick Blast (Quick + damage + knockback); Air Superiority (Hits every enemy, damage boosted by redraw)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Captain America
Pros: Huge block generation; block-taunt-counter combo can be devastating; card draw
Cons: Taunt can backfire; mainly a support character
Best cards: Shield Bounce (damage and taunt enemies in an area)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Spider-Man
Pros: Balanced mix of multi-target, knockback, status effects
Cons: Lacks a heavy finisher ability on bosses
Best card: Opportunist (Makes environment attacks free, +2 moves)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Captain Marvel
Pros: Self-sufficient; bonafide bruiser with a good beam ability
Cons: Have to play Go Binary to unlock her full power; taunting can bring damage that removes Go Binary
Best card: Photon Beam (Damage and taunt enemies in a line)
B-tier Midnight Suns characters (Good)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Blade
Pros: Excellent sustain; heavy single-target damage
Cons: Abilities are best played in a particular order to set off the combo
Best card: Stake (big lifesteal heroic)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Doctor Strange
Pros: Surprisingly versatile; two powerful “Epic” cards that can negate damage completely
Cons: Some heroic cards require 4-6 heroism for max effect; slow setups
Best card: Shield of the Serpahim (adds resist to the whole team); Agamotto’s Gaze (4 cards on the next turn, draws last 2 attacks)
C-tier Midnight Suns characters (Less-viable, or OK with caveats)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Magik
Pros: The most knockout-focused hero in Midnight Suns; Portal is a hole you can use to set up advantageous enemy collisions and is quite fun; very viable when paired with heroes characters who don’t run lots of knockback cards
Cons: Reinforcement and Banish are cool but expensive rare abilities; almost none of her cards deal direct damage
Best card: Limbo’s Grasp (bonus damage to enemies punted through portals)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Ghost Rider
Pros: Heavy potential damage; several cards that scale as the battle progresses
Cons: Starting deck is underwhelming; Soul Drain takes multiple rounds to empower
Best card: Hell Ride (heavy line attack but discards your entire hand)
D-tier Midnight Suns characters (Bad or impractical)
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Wolverine
Pros: Lots of chain abilities; taunt + lifesteal is sometimes an effective defense; gets a free revive when downed
Cons: Very low damage; he’s a tank who gets KO’d often
Best card: Stink of Fear (taunt and counter)
Late-game Midnight Suns characters
Scarlet WitchHulk
(Image credit: 2K Games)
Scarlet Witch – D-tier
Pros: Great crowd control against weak enemies; one or two useful supports
Cons: Cards heavily dependent on positioning; low damage; take time to set up
Best card: Chaos Field (Allies near Scarlet Witch gain resist)
Hulk – TBD
I’ve not yet added Hulk to my Midnight Suns roster after 50 hours, but I’ll update this list once I spend some time with the green giant.
Unreleased DLC characters
DeadpoolVenomStormMorbius