Choosing the four characters for your team is the very first thing you must do.  I always encourage people to use characters they like, even if just one of those four.  OverPower is meant for you to have fun, so make sure whatever you do is for fun and not just to win.  Do not worry about which characters are the most powerful.  Different players will do different things with the exact same deck.  You should do something that you enjoy, so use characters you like.  Picking just one is best, then we can progress from there.  After you have picked the first character it is best to choose three more who compliment that first character's stats.  At the very least you should choose four with the same primary stat of either a 7 or an 8.  Let's say you picked Wolverine.  His primary stat is Fighting and he is rated an 8.  Your other three characters should have a Fighting rating of at least a 6, but a 7 is usually preferred.  This will be explained in the detail on Power cards.  As far as the other three stats are concerned they could be anything.  It will not help a beginner very much to go into detail as to what you could do with those stats as it primarily depends on an individual player's style.  Most likely you will learn it on your own in time.  For now I will say try not to have too many 1's or 2's in more than one stat.

    One of the major factors that makes or breaks a character's playability is that character's Specials.  As it is very difficult to explain which specials work, which do not, and why, I will save that for you to discover on your own.  Some are a little obvious, like high level attacks.  But since the main focus of this website is to teach a beginner, then the best thing for you to do is to try them out.  Go ahead and put most or even all of a character's Specials into the deck and see how useful they are.  When you notice some that do not work well, remove them.  Some cards you may find useful and I do not want to preach to you to not use them.  Plus, if you do not try them out then you will not know why they do or do not work well.  For the character you put in Reserve, I will tell you to only put in one Special for that character, as any others may only be discards.

    Power cards will be your most basic form of attack and defense for your characters.  This is where I will explain in more detail why it is best to match up the power grids for your four characters.  It is pretty simple after you have heard it, but most beginners do not know why this should be done until after they have built a few decks.  If your four characters have the exact same stats, then every power card you can put in will be playable by every character.  If each character has a different primary stat, then some power cards will only be playable by one character.  Most of the time this is bad.  For beginners this will be a difficult way to learn how to play.  It is especially important that your higher level power cards, level 6 through 8, be playable by each character .  Most likely you will need to use these cards for defense, as defensive Specials only go so far.  It is also beneficial if each low level power card, level 1 through 5, is playable by each character.  These cards are usually used as follow ups to a Teamwork card and also for defending against low level attacks that could easily lead to a Knockout.  I have not yet talked about how many of any card you should put into a deck, but here is a tip for Power cards.  A good distribution of Power cards is essential.  As high level Power cards are more important for good defense and high attacks, I always have a greater number of 7's or 8's than 1's.  Generally, I use 2 or 3 of each of the lower values and 3 to 5 of the higher values.  Of course, it all depends on the player and the deck.  The final point about Power cards is which power type to use.  The higher values should be the same power type as the primary stat and playable by each character.  For the lower values I look at two of the remaining power types and pick the ones that make Teamwork follow ups easy to make.  I will demonstrate how I do this in a sample deck later.

    The final card type I want to talk about in detail for beginners is the Universe: Teamwork card.  I want to keep this part simple as you will see fairly easily how these cards work.  First, all Teamwork cards have a requirement to use.  This requirement will either be a 6, 7, or an 8 in a specific skill type which is listed on the card.  Because they have this requirement to use your choices of Teamworks are rather limited.  In building a deck just look at your characters' stats and see which Teamworks may be played by those characters.  If only one character on your team meets the requirement to play a certain Teamwork, then I do not recommend putting in more than one of that Teamwork, if any at all.  For the rest of the Teamworks, if 3 or 4 characters meet the to use requirement, then I suggest a maximum of 2 or 3 be used.  When it comes to the follow up attacks, make sure you are using power cards that can be played by each character on your team as this will make this part of the game easier and more fun to play.