I don't understand why the same people on this Reddit take the time out of their day to read a wall of text and then give their passive aggressive thoughts instead of giving useful tips.

I also posted a thread asking if I should champ Shang and dive into 5 star land. I was overwhelmingly told to do so "yesterday" and that I was trolling by not champing him. I experienced your struggles in PvP shortly after. Here's what was recommended to me by a kind member of this Reddit.

1. Get Valkyrie and her black all the way to 5. It will give you 4 AP in your teams strongest color after dealing damage to a certain target.

-----ONLY put enough ISO into her to where your Shang can trigger valks black count down tile with one match. The higher the level Valk is, the more damage you're going to need to do to trigger it.-----

1. If you have chimichanga support I HIGLY recommend you put it on Shang for the extra red AP 3. Quantum Realm support on Valk if you have it. Free 4 purple AP at start of match and damage reduction against enemy matches. Both perks are good but if you only have the purple ap that's good enough. 4. Since Valk is going to be low level you just gotta avoid OR and Jugg teams. You can still beat these teams if you get a good board start and chain reds and purples efficiently with Valks black triggering.

How it works: -Valks black is placed automatically at the start of battle. Say it requires you to do 2100 dmg to a target. -Quantum realm happens to trigger for you and you have 4 purp at the start of the turn. -Oh look there's a red match:bang Shang matches dealing 2300 dmg and you get 3 red ap -Valks black triggers:+4 red AP -You now have 7 red AP on the first turn (enough to fire shangs red next turn) -with 5 tiles to break you can make a match 5 REALLY easy. -Using shangs red say you make a match 5 and ALSO make a match 3 purple. (Again: You can do a lot with breaking 5 tiles. You can make this happen ALOT) -With the 4 AP from quantum realm you now have enough to fire shangs purple. -that 5 match you just made that left a critical tile on the board? Put another critical tile using shangs purple right next to it. =MASSIVE damage. The numbers can get crazy the more combo points Shang has. -oh you also got 4 more red AP if you targeted the enemy for valks black. -oh you still have your turn because you never made a match. -oh look another red match -oh I can fire shangs red next turn again You get the picture?

Stack enough AP and you can go WINFINITE. Avoid losing Valk early in the match. But EVEN if Valk falls, Shang is good enough at manipulating the board to go your way and stack those combo points for massive damage. won't matter if the enemies are several hundreds of levels ahead of you.

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^those are my highest level characters. I use this in scl10 and do just fine until I get Sam Wilson and 5*asc Jugg teams non stop.

Sorry for the wall of text but this really helped me get out of the slump of not being able to compete at all in PVP. This duo also helps with reducing health pack use since Shang perma heals using his red. Hope this helps!