How do you chose your decks?

I'm curious, how do people determine what decks they're using?

My group tends to go a bit random for heroes, with players picking whoever they feel like, although I'll usually try to patch up any missing roles we have. We usually pick a villain based on whoever we haven't played that often, then pick a setting that's vaguely appropriate.

I have an app that's supposed to put together a set of decks, but I kind of gave up on it after a "Medium" (75% win rate) got us slaughtered.

I have too many preferences, so I usually take the suport character slot (Legacy, Argent Adept, Team Leader Tachyon, Parse). For my powerhouse choices, I take Ra, Tempest, KNYFE, Setback. When I want to sit back and tank damage, I prefer Naturalist or Scholar.

The randomizer helps me when I can't decide.

My groups tend to use similar logic for choices.  Some people I play with prefer to stick to only 2-3 decks that they really like.  Others like to try ones that they haven't played recently.  Some folks just want someone they can use to cause straightforward destruction after a frustrating day at work.  I tend to choose based on what I think the group needs after others have picked, though there are times when I've chosen decks because there was a particular character I really wanted to play.  Occasionally we've gone with a randomizer app, but we generally prefer to go with player choice.

Unfortunately, neither of my regular gaming groups have played Sentinels recently since we've been trying out a bunch of other new games.

Pure random. Roll a die, or die roller app as a d49 (including Cauldron and my own fan decks) is hard to find. Sometimes reroll if its the same result as a recent game for villain or environment, or if I get aKash when I haven't got time.

I almost exclusively randomise, because I prefer the challenge of that. Also I'm too lazy to choose. ;)

What tends to happen pretty often in G+ games is that we'll randomise a set, some heroes will be chosen right away and I'll either take whatever's left or roll a die to see which one I take, or I'll pick one of them based on who I've played less frequently.

Unless I am teaching, I usually go pure random (with the occasional veto) for everything.

One of my RPG club friends has a very easy job with this. I don't even ask anymore, I just hand him Bunker. ;)

My 10yo daughter generally plays either Unity or Expatriette, but will sometimes mix it up and play Tachyon instead.

I'll play whatever anyone else hasn't chosen that I haven't done in a while.

I pick whoever I want to play, which usually takes me through the whole roster of heroes.

I randomize everything. I will only re-randomize a villain if it's one I had already played that villain within that patch of games.

Or if it's Miss Information or Spite, right?

I often make others pick for me. Like, "Hey, y'all, I'm running to the restroom. Pick a character for me and get started." That or a random finger point. Occasionally, I'll have an itch to play someone specific.

But almost never do I choose a hero based on game factors, such as villain or other heroes.

Me neither. If you always take certain heroes against certain villains you're missing out on potentially surprising and interesting interactions.

The closest I've got is asking the chat who I should play in the Handelabra stream last week, or picking according to a non-game-factor theme like the game we did on Thanksgiving where we only used non-American characters.

Sometimes I'll random, or pick a favourite, or one I haven't played in a while.

Other times my group sets up themed fights, which is fun.

When I’m playing solitaire, I determine randomly with dice rolls and have rarely come up against the villain I can’t defeat (though Akash’Bhuta in the Block is a notable exception; that combination is frigging brutal). When I’m playing with friends, I let them pick and try to fill gaps depending on whether we need damage output, deck control, destruction of ongoing/environment effects, or whatever.

Our group has started choosing "Themes" to constrain our hero selection and encourage us to try interesting teamups. So far we've done all the magic heroes, all the tech heroes, all the "B-list" heroes (We defined B-list as being based on a character without a major movie (or game series, since Knyfe is clearly Commander Shepherd) (I think we ended up playing Unity, Naturalist, Omnitron-X, and Chrono-Ranger.)

I think maybe next-time we'll only do heroes who are good at melee or something

Our group mainly randomizes, but if I do solo play I’ll go by themes like Susan. I think one of my favorites is heroes from the science and progress one-shot, so unity Tachyon, visionary, zero, and tempest.

Also I like the team of fixer, nightmist, and fixer from the lost in time card, I thought they would make a very odd team in the comics.

I also like to make an all lady team, and when WCos comes out I look forward to having a team of three non humans.

Tldr: either random or themes, or if I haven’t played someone in a while.

Yes, that is quite the odd team…

Personally i play alot by myself. When i choose i take a variety of different styles. I love puting teams together who are almost completely opposites. My favorite so far is tempest, unity, and zero

I wrote my a randomizer, which we use except when there's new stuff we want to try out.

Let's get statistical...

Out of 20 games, 

Heroes

5-7 games with be with people from Team NightFlame (Devra, Tach, LegC, Fanatic, Ra)

7-10 times, I'll randomize.

3-8 times, I'll have others choose for me.

Villain (when I choose)

~7 games will be with an Infernal Relics villain

1-2 games will be with Kaarga Warfang

The rest I randomize.

Environment (again, when I choose)

Always random unless we've played it recently. Although I am always slightly hoping for Tomb of Anubis or Rook City.

As a group, we tend to pick the villain well beforehand, almost always opting for someone we haven't faced before (unless we lost to a given villain before, in which case we go for revenge), and we try to pick an environment that fits with the villain in question or the scenario we've got in mind.

Being that I know the game the best of the people I play with, I will usually make recommendations for heroes based on what we need and the level of complexity, then I'll pick my character to fill any holes we have in the group. Or, if the villain's simple enough and I think we have the bases covered, I try someone I haven't played with much.

My group typically chooses the heros first, then the villain and environment. Mainy because if I choose the villain first, then I know a lot of people are going to choose a team to counter the villain, which takes a lot of the fun out of the game for me

I usually go full random. I may pass spite for boringness... And be a bit more choosy for the Chairman or Miss Information as far as needing some roles fullfilled for a better time.

I randomly choose my games using a VBA excel sheet I made. Each game I generate both a normal Villain and a team of Vengeance Villains and then decide which game looks more fun. If none of the options look fun I will re-randomize everything.

When playing the physical game, I tend to play heroes\enviroments which aren't available yet on the video game. I mostly play with new players so I tend to keep it to the more straight forward (as in mechanics, not difficulty) villains.

On the app, it depends on my mood. Mostly random, but sometimes I go specific if I want a certain type of game. e.g. Plague Rat for pure damage, Miss Information if I want a puzzle, Iron Legacy if I want my backside kicked.

In the app I always go random, re-rolling only if Spite or Miss Information comes up.

When I play with my group, most of them just pick what they haven't played in awhile, while I gravitate towards KNYFE, Setback, or the Naturalist depending on my mood. For villains and environment we normally just go random, again re-rolling if Spite or Miss Information comes up since we are getting together to actually have fun.

We typically roll randomly for a villain and environment, re-rolling based on what seems fun at the time. Then we pick heroes based on the scenario or whim (I tend to try and spread out my heroes, so if I haven’t played somebody in a while I’m more likely to pick them).