Flying in on his signature surfboard, the Silver Surfer has been wowing Marvel Strike Force players with his incredible kit and helpful passives since March of 2021. He’s one of the most powerful characters in the game given his ability to transfer negative effects and steal positive ones, in addition to being very difficult to block. His stats are also top tier in nearly every category.

The Silver Surfer is a character that can fit in well with any team and as such can facilitate some pretty creative team building. You’ll see him being used with heroes and villains alike and giving those teams a strong competitive advantage, all things considered.

In this guide, we’ll take a look at the Silver Surfer’s full kit, including his passive skill. We’ll also dive into how he plays with other characters with some team building tips.

So how does the former Herald of Galactus play in Marvel Strike Force?

SKILLS

Cosmic Crackle

Basic Skill

First up on the list of skills for the Silver Surfer is his basic attack, Cosmic Crackle. Even at its base level, this attack can’t be counterattacked – a theme you’ll see in the rest of the skill kit. The Silver Surfer will either transfer one negative effect to the primary target or absorb one positive attack from the primary target in the absence of any negative ones.

This is a devastating basic skill when maxed out to level 7. This time, all negative or positive effects will be transferred upon attack, either fully removing debuffs on the Silver Surfer or empowering him with whatever buffs have been cast on the primary target. This gives the Silver Surfer a lot of sustain in battle, in addition to his passive that we’ll cover later.

He’ll have the ability to deliver consistent, steady damage to the enemy team without any fear of being hampered by a lowered attack or defense.

Sentinel of the Spaceways

Special Skill

No good kit is complete without a good AOE attack, and the Silver Surfer has quite the nice one in Sentinel of the Spaceways! This attack does 100% Piercing damage to the primary target at level 1 and costs 5 Energy to cast. In addition, all adjacent targets (usually up to three targets, and even more in raids) will take 50% Piercing damage.

The longer you can keep your enemies from receiving any buffs in battle, the easier they’ll be to defeat, and this skill does just that at higher ranks!

Starting at level 4, this attack will begin to apply Disrupted to the primary target, keeping that enemy from receiving any buffs. At level 6 adjacent targets will also receive the Defense Down debuff, making them further susceptible to attacks from the Silver Surfer and the rest of your team. A fully maxed out Sentinel of the Spaceways will do 600% Piercing damage and apply Disrupted for 2 turns instead of only one.

Event Horizon

Ultimate Skill

Event Horizon can’t be blocked or counterattacked, making it a reliable source of a good chunk of damage when execution of Ultimate Skills tend to get us edgy and panicky, worried it’ll miss and result in a waste of the energy and opportunity built up to that point.

At level 1, this attack damages all enemies for 70% Piercing and clears all Charged effects and 1 positive effect from the primary target. Level 3 is when Event Horizon begins to become truly devasting as an Ultimate Skill.  At this level Heal Block is applied to all enemies, in addition to 150% Piercing damage. Level 4 adds Ability Block to the primary target for 1 turn and strips them of 2 positive effects instead of only 1.  

A fully maxed Event Horizon makes a case for one of the best Ultimate Skills in the game! The Piercing damage jumps to 350%, it clears Immunity, and applies Heal Block for 2 turns to all enemies. Clears Immunity! Can you believe the developers would create something like that? Considering this buff is meant to protect characters against debuffs, it can’t defend itself against the Silver Surfer, putting characters at risk at any one time. Perhaps “danger” is the Silver Surfer’s middle name!

That’s not all: the primary target loses Charged, all positive effects, and get Ability Block for 2 turns. For a second round of whooping, Silver Surfer has something incredible that no other characters have at this point — clear Charged! A feature that’s given us quite a lot of pain when facing the likes of the Black Panther, Juggernaut, Doctor Octopus, etc., and now we have a character that can finally rid us of this charging pain!

The Power Cosmic

Passive Skill

At level 1 this passive immediately grants the Silver Surfer Defense Up upon spawning. Already buffed, he also gains a 15% speed boost on his turn up to a max of 45%. But possibly the best part of the entry level of this Passive Skill is that if the Silver Surfer has the Offense Up buff, all of his attacks will ignore any Defense Up buffs that the enemy may have. That makes it important to focus on stealing an Offense Up with his other abilities or an ally that can provide him that buff, like Beast.  

Level 5 brings with it a whole other host of buffs. His Defense Up upon spawn will last for 3 turns and he gains 5% of his Max Health back on any turn. When a non-summoned ally dies, the Silver Surfer gains Offense Up, triggering the other part of this Passive Skill where all of his attacks ignore Defense Up.

He also gains 50% Resistance and 50% Focus. He also gains an additional 50% Resistance if he faces 1 or more enemies with the Villain Cosmic designation. On the other hand, he gains an additional 50% Focus if he fights with 1 or more Hero Cosmic allies, so make sure to include a hero like the new Kestral or the Invisible Woman on your team to take full advantage of this effect!

Recommended Team Mates

As previously mentioned, the Silver Surfer’s unique skill set and abilities make him a good fit in just about any team composition. He can be considered a plug-and-play character, fitting in well with any roster. The only thing to really keep in mind is to try to include a Hero Cosmic character in your lineup to take advantage of his passive. Below are a few fun ideas that could work for you and the characters to which you have access.

Silver Surfer’s basic attack either transfers debuffs to his target, or steals his target’s buffs. Plenty of enemies will apply buffs on themselves, so that’s something you know you can take advantage of. So it’s a question of whether you want to focus on stealing enemy buffs (and thereby unbuffing them), or to apply as many debuffs on the enemy as possible.

If you’d like to steal and unbuff your enemies, you’ll need to keep the Silver Surfer free of germs! That’ll mean characters like Jessica Jones and Phoenix who can quickly and effectively clear all debuffs on him. If you’d want to pass on the hot potato, why not use the time-old beloved Scientist Supreme who will give Silver Surfer plenty of debuff gifts to give, failing which, SS herself can just flip them to benefit Silver Surfer!

His Special Skill applies one of the less common debuffs, but there are still some other characters who can cast it too. Avoid having Magneto on the same team, but if you have Blob, consider adding him to make use of the Disrupted effect.

Tactically speaking, you should try to execute his Ultimate Skill first to remove any Immunity your target may have (if not, then that’s fine!) before executing your Special Skill. If you realize by now, Silver Surfer is quite the debuffer, applying a good score of negative effects on the enemies. Bring in Anti-Venom at this point and he’ll be spreading all the positive goodness of positive buffs, courtesy of your friendly cosmic Silver Surfer!

Now, here’s a little something to combo his Passive Skill with his Ultimate Skill — “Lower Resistance by 50% for all enemies with Heal Block.” So, once you successfully apply Heal Block, your targets will continue getting more and more debuffs, right? And the best way to enjoy more of this ease of debuffing is by prolonging their misery! Bring in characters like Miles Morales and Symbiote Spider-Man to double the duration count of Heal Block, and it’ll be Happy Hour in the Debuff Bar!

We already see that the Silver Surfer is well-designed to be part of a heavy debuffing team!

Recruiting the Traveller of the Cosmos

During his first release in March 2021, the way to obtain Silver Surfer shards was to participate in Alliance Raids and earn milestones in the S.T.R.I.K.E. Pass season 1.

Shards were available starting at Milestone 20 during that the Raid Season at that time.

Milestone 20: 4,250,000 points
Milestone 21: 5,250,000 points
Milestone 22: 6,500,000 points
Milestone 23: 8,000,000 points
Milestone 24: 9,750,000 points
Milestone 25: 12,000,000 points
Milestone 26: 14,000,000 points
Milestone 27: 17,000,000 points
Milestone 28: 20,000,000 points
Milestone 29: 24,000,000 points
Milestone 30: 29,000,000 points
Milestone 31: 35,000,000 points
Milestone 32: 42,000,000 points
Milestone 33: 50,000,000 points
Milestone 34: 60,000,000 points
Milestone 35: 70,000,000 points
Milestone 36: 85,000,000 points
Milestone 37: 100,000,000 points
Milestone 38: 120,000,000 points
Milestone 39: 140,000,000 points
Milestone 40: 170,000,000 points

In the first season of S.T.R.I.K.E. Pass, you can earn up to 50 Silver Surfer shards for free, and another 50 more if you purchase the premium pass. This is the same for all three tiers of S.T.R.I.K.E. Pass.

Considering how powerful Silver Surfer is and how much popularity he has garnered even with just his teaser image on Marvel Strike Force’s official Facebook, we can be sure the cosmic sentinel will be back in more ways in future!