Entering Marvel Contest of Champions: Black Widow (Claire Voyant)

The Contest’s newest Champion, Black Widow (Claire Voyant), was a spirit medium who communicated with the dead through supernatural means. Killed by a client in a job gone wrong, Voyant was sent to Hell where Satan gave her the ability to kill with a single touch, sending her back to Earth to avenge her own death.

After avenging her murder, Voyant returned to Satan who, no longer content to wait for evil souls to die a natural death, charged her with bringing more souls to him.

As a Mystic character class, Claire's basic abilities include Power Steal, Regeneration, Nullify, and Death Touch.

Claire has 3 types of curses, each providing her with a different immunity, however, only 1 curse can be active at a time. She is focused on cycling through her different curses throughout the fight to always stay one step ahead of the Opponent.

Each of Claire’s 3 curses are associated with different utility: Curse of Blood is focused on Regeneration, Curse of Plague is focused on Power Control, and Curse of Hellfire is focused on damage. By default the Curse of Blood is active.

By ending a combo with a light attack Claire can switch her active curse, allowing her to adjust her utility set on the fly throughout any given fight. Landing a fourth Light Attack casts the next curse in the following order:

• Curse of Blood: Bleed immunity
• Curse of Plague: Poison immunity
• Curse of Hellfire: Incinerate immunity

Additionally, each curse comes with a matching immunity making her great at completely bypassing Bleed, Poison and Incinerate effects.

Claire starts with 3 charges - Clairvoyance Charge (Passive). Each time she or her Opponent are immune to any effect, or an immunity Purifies a pre-existing effect, she gains 1 charge and 4% of her max Power. Charges stack up to 20. If the Opponent has 1 or more Buffs, landing or receiving a Light or Medium attack consumes a charge and Nullifies 1 of their Buffs.

Black Widow's first Special Attack, Curse of Damnation, summons a blast from the underworld, cursing her Opponent. Finishing a combo with a Medium attack inflicts 1 Debuff. Throwing a Heavy Attack or Special 1 inflicts up to 3 Debuffs.

These Debuffs are determined by Claire’s active curse and last for 8 seconds. Curse of Blood: Bleed, dealing 57.64 direct damage. Curse of Plague: Poison, dealing 57.64 damage and reducing health recovery by 30%. Curse of Hellfire: Incinerate, dealing 57.64 damage, removing Perfect Block Chance and reducing Block Proficiency by 50%.

If the Opponent is throwing a Special Attack that lasts for a long duration and doesn’t cover the whole screen, Claire can dash back and throw Heavy Attacks during their attack to cast Debuffs onto them safely. It’s important to keep an eye on the Opponent since they will likely dash right back in after their attack ends, but this can be a quick trick to build Debuffs or charges.

Leaping forwarding with Special Attack 2, Wrath of the Widow, Claire uses her shadow limbs to slash the Opponent with a series of devastating blows.100% chance to inflict the Opponent with Buff Immunity for 10 seconds. Decreasing to 50% against Science Champions.

Each hit grants an effect determined by Claire’s active curse. Curse of Blood: Regenerate 35% of the damage dealt. Curse of Plague: Steal 5% of the Opponent’s current Power. Curse of Hellfire: Deal a burst of 1152.8 direct energy damage.

By using some smart timing, it’s possible for Claire to throw a Special 2 while Curse of Plague is active and steal back enough power to immediately throw another special. Balancing the different curses, depending on the matchup, is key to playing as Claire.

Claire seals the Opponent’s fate marking their forehead with the touch of death and sentencing their soul to Hell with her Special Attack 3, Soul Reaver. All Clairvoyance charges are removed, each increasing her Attack Rating during this attack by 288.2. Claire gains Death Touch, lasting for 1.2 seconds per Clairvoyance charge removed, Death Touch increases the Potency of all Curse effects by 100% and is not affected by Ability Accuracy reduction.

Death Touch is Active with her Signature Ability, Death Immunity. When receiving damage that would knock her out, Death Touch is consumed instead and Claire gains a Death Immunity Buff, preventing death and healing 18.83% of her max health over 4 seconds. If Claire is awakened, Death Touch is a great way to survive incoming Special 3 Attacks or other high damaging unavoidable attacks. Additionally any hit that would kill Claire while Death Touch is active will grant her a Clairvoyance charge since she is immune to it.

Claire's Strengths include Immunities, Fighting Opponents who are Immune, and Power Control and Sustainability.

• Claire’s ability to switch her active immunity makes her extremely valuable against many Opponents and nodes. This also allows her to synergize with the Double Edge and Liquid Courage Masteries very well, since she can have both of them purified within a single combo.
• While playing as Claire, it’s very valuable to play against an Opponent who is immune to her Debuffs because it allows her to gain Clairvoyance charges and power at an extremely rapid rate. This also works very well in matchups on Stun immune nodes, since each Parry will also give her a charge and power!
• Claire’s ability to Power Steal granted through the Curse of Plague allows her to keep the Opponent’s power under control for most of any given fight, additionally switching back to Curse of Blood allows her to heal back any chip damage she might have taken during the fight!

While Claire's Weaknesses include Opponents who aren't Immune, Power Sting, and Evasion Champions or anyone that prevents a full 5 hit combo.

• Claire really needs her Clairvoyance charges to hit her true potential, Opponent’s who aren’t immune to one of her 3 different Debuffs can be annoying to fight since building those charges will be much more difficult.
• Claire relies on throwing a high number of Special Attacks. If suffering from Power Sting, Claire will take a ton of damage when activating Special Attacks and will have to stop her loop until the effect has fallen off.
• Claire needs to finish a full 5 hit combo ending with a Light Attack in order to switch to her next curse. Any Champions who can prevent this from happening will lock her into a single curse and shut down a lot of her best utility.

Receive Synergy bonuses when you utilize Guilty Souls with Self-Synergy at 2-Stars and higher Unique Synergy; Spider’s Bite with Black Widow at 3-Stars and higher Unique Synergy; Fire and Forget with Human Torch, Sunspot & Mephisto at 4-Stars and higher Unique Synergy; A Spell A Day Keeps The Doctor Away with Doctor Strange at 4-Stars and higher Unique Synergy; and Judgement Day with Ghostrider at 5* and higher Unique Synergy.

Recommended masteries include Liquid Courage, Double Edge, Mystic Dispersion, and Recovery.