CREATING A CHARACTER: NAMORA (ORIGIN) 4*

Harnessing the Deep Blue Sea to Screen with our newest warrior.

Whenever we see a new incarnation of an existing character, part of the fun is finding out what’s changed – do they have the same powers? Is their origin different?! Do they get a cool new costume?!? With her debut in Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we get to have that fun all over again – and it’s also a great opportunity to examine what’s core to the character across all her iterations (and Namora’s had many; first debuted in 1947, which is at least a couple years ago).

Namora’s a warrior first – raised from birth & trained to fight for her people, she wields her considerable strength with precision. She is intelligent, steadfast and loyal. And most importantly, those traits all connect to the sea, her home, where she draws her strength from.

For the character now available in MARVEL Puzzle Quest inspired by Namora from the film, these core traits made it easy to settle on a Red-Green-Purple ability color set:

Cut Once

Her first ability, in Red, is Cut Once, is all about the nature of her strength and how she uses it.

Namora is strongest when in water and weakened without it. Using Blue tiles to represent water is something we’ve done before with Namor, and what better opportunity to revisit that idea than with Namora and her Cut Once passive ability?

As previously mentioned, Namora’s ties to the ocean are the bonds that grant her strength and the Blue tiles are the perfect way to represent this both visually and thematically. With the right balance of Blue tiles surrounding her, Namora remains pretty strong throughout battles. We level that powerful balance when an opponent is able to take away the source of her strength by eliminating or reducing Blue tiles. She’s still dangerous with a low number of Blue tiles, but when you can get a lot of them out there, she’s terrifyingly powerful. Almost like a tidal wave of power.

No Obstacles

Her second ability is her Green: No Obstacles is an opportunity to represent another aspect of her strength; her relentlessness. By coupling this ability’s Protect tile destruction with her passive bonus, not only will she break your walls down, she’ll take advantage of you having no walls left!

Her ‘No Obstacles’ power represents another aspect of her strength and steadfastness. She’s super-humanly strong, and she knows it. So, when presented with someone defending, she knows that using her power will eliminate the opposition and clear her team to complete their mission. And of course, once you’ve destroyed the enemy’s defenses, you’re in an even stronger offensive position, which is represented by a *second* static buff to her damage that stacks with her buff from Blue tiles.

Empire’s Might

Finally her Purple ability, Empire’s Might, represents Namora’s craftiness. She may be strong, she may be skilled in combat, but she’s also cunning. Sure, she could send her team into a direct confrontation, but why do that if a quick harpoon from the shadows will do the job should an opponent inadvertently match one of her trap tiles? This ability represents how she can make these strikes, destabilizing the enemy and putting her team in a yet better position to succeed.

Protip; Because these traps work the same way regardless of who matches them, they’re a great priority for your team to keep the pressure on by fueling Namora’s abilities, and cheap enough to get started fairly quickly.

So now that you’ve got a rundown on what makes Namora such a worthy ally in battle, here are a few things to keep in mind to maximize her effectiveness against opponents.

• The Sea is Namora’s domain – so too are the basic Blue tiles on the board! Pair with (and against) characters that don’t use Blue AP to maximize the basic Blue tiles on the board, and therefore her per-tile damage bonus; against her, make sure to keep the basic Blue tile count low!
• Keep the Blue tiles basic – special Blue tiles don’t count towards her bonus.
• The Trap tiles from Empire’s Might are great for the enemy to step on, but even better to set them off yourself. Use this ability frequently to keep a good count of basic Blue tiles on the board and the balance of AP in your favor.

As much fun as it is to introduce complex interactions & mechanics, Namora’s got a strong & cohesive core that we wanted to focus on; quite simply, she rewards you for matching her colors and breaking the opponent’s toys! With a little care and board awareness, you’ll have a powerhouse on your hands. We hope you enjoy playing her when she makes her way into your rosters!

MARVEL Puzzle Quest is available on the App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore and Steam.  Click the PLAY NOW button to start your puzzle battle!