The opposite of the "Dream Team" conversation going on at the moment - which combination of heroes are least likely to be able to deal with a wide variety of situations? For added challenge, let's say you have to have exactly 5.
(Bonus: Choose 5 who are currently in the video game and I'll try a few games using them.)
I would say any five heroes who lack destruction abilities, since this can really screw you up if you're fighting someone who puts out horrible ongoings (or are in an environment with lots of nasty cards) and you then have no way to counter them (or in the case of environment targets must divert resources to deal with them when you could be pounding on the main bad guy). It would probably just end up as something of a damage race, though in some cases the ongoing/environmetn cards would be ones that actively stopped you from doing certain things or otherwise messed up whatever tactics you were trying to use (eg Ra being the main damage-dealer against Omnitron, who then plays an Adaptive Plating Subroutine).
AbZero (base)
Bunker (base)
Expat
Unity
Haka of Knowledge
I will say that trying to come up with a team of 5 that has weakspots is really hard since almost every hero brings something strong to the table. I'd probably sub out Unity for KNYFE however (but shes not in the video game). The idea behind this team was to A) make them super equipment dependant and B) fewer consistent options for Ongoing/Enviro removal.
Scholar, Mr Fixer, Bunker, Ra, and Haka. This team has no ongoing or environment destruction cards (except if you use EOW which for this case base versions should be used) which I think could cause some problems. It also has no ability to manipulate the villain deck or prevent card plays. I'm sure this team could still take out a lot of villains but it could be rough against the likes of Iron Legacy and Citizen Dawn without that Ongoing destruction.
FIxer can destroy ongoings...as an incap ability, so obviously there's a bit of a sacrifice to be made there in order to be able to do that ;).
So can Ra as an incap ability. I prefer to keep my team alive if possible and there could be a lot of Ongoings to deal with by the time he's incapped or too late if Iron Legacy.
I would pick a team with long buildup times and primarily support.
1. Absolute Zero
2. Legacy
3. Argent Adept
4. Visionary
5. Engine of War Bunker
That's the weakest we can get in the video game at this point. Otherwise, I'd go:
1. Argent Adept
2. Visionary
3. Termination AZ
4. Captain Cosmic
5. Parse
They have lots of control, but not a lot of damage output, unless they can get AZ going and recovering quickly. For the most fun, put AZ first each round so he doesn't get support first thing.
Honestly, unless they're up against a lot of ongoing or equipment destruction, that's still a pretty good team. Especially if you feed AZ both Legacy and AA's buffs? It might take a while to set up, but once this team gets going, they're going to wreck things.
Get a Twist the Ether on AZ as well, and…
The real point is their slow buildup. Any hero team has its strengths. This team will have low damage and a slow build-up, giving the villains the most chance to take them out early.
Are there five heroes with no ongoing destruction in either their deck or incapacitated powers? Bunker, Legacy, Tachyon, ...
Tachyon surely has Ongoing destruction in her deck.
I'd say people are on the right track looking for nothing but "just damage" characters who can't manipulate decks/destroy non-Targets. However, some characters in that category are amazing - and Legacy, in particular, may well be the most powerful in the game.
I'll try to avoid any "control" effects as well, but my real priority is to find heroes who are setup dependant - I've had really effective games with Unity and AZ (I've had each of them win games near-singlehandedly, in fact), but they're also more inconsistant, since they need to draw the right cards, in the right order, without the villain breaking those cards too soon.
Bunker (Freedom Six)
Expatriette (Dark Watch)
Absolute Zero (Termi-Nation)
Mr. Fixer (Dark Watch)
For the last slot, I can't quite decide between Chrono-Ranger (base) and Unity (Termi-Nation). They each have a tiny amount of stuff destruction, and they both tend to be better at their jobs once they get going than the other four. Even without setup, Ranger is actually pretty good at single-target damage if there's no reduction about, whilst Unity has some of the highest damage in the game on a good day. Even still, these characters have much more limited options than many others - any team made using these six can break things, but lacking so many options, they'll lose more Advanced games than they win.
Hurm. I guess I should try a few villains with them, see what I can do. Let's start with... Citizen Dawn (Advanced).
Haka (base), Fixer (base), Bunker (base), Ra (Horus), and maybe KNYFE (base). That's a lot of damage, so they could focus just about anyone down, but with no buffs or while under heavy fire, they may go down fast.
You put Mr. Fixer and Expat on a team and that team is a good team. Those two work together so well.
My personal worst team:
Rogue Agent KNYFE
Redeemer Fanatic
PW Cosmic
DW Setback
Bunker, the Panzer Buster one.
Not only would I lose a lot more with that team, I would hate playing.
Legacy, Nightmist, Scholar, AZ, and huh I dunno say NW Fixer, AA, or maybe Bunker would be a team that is steping all over each other's toes. NM and AZ do self damage and Legacy and Scholar might buff it too hard, or negate it. Add the slow build up to heavy damage and it could get really bad for the heroes. All that being said, I think Tempest or Wraith as the last man on this team would be perfectly viable and might just be awesome.
I think it says something that it's kinda hard to think of a team of 5 that would be hard pressed to be full of fail. Now a 3 man team (esecially against certain villians) would be easier to pick.
phantaskippy listed some I have to agree with.
GI Bunker is probably the most limited hero I know of.
Dark Watch Setback... I used just as many times as GI Bunker (1). Setback can get a lot of milage from his base power and seems a lot worse without it, if nothing else to help him get another power faster.
Redeemer Fanatic would be great at setting up her ultimate attack, though you've been healing a lot. It seems rather contradictory. I kind of like it for Miss Information but that's the only time I use this variant.
The rest, I'm a bit indecisive about.
How about the other 2 Bunkers? I guess the environment might get glued down. Good luck building up before the villain becomes unmanageable, or if a big equipment destruction card comes along. If I can't do triple Bunker...
Termi-Nation Absolute Zero adds more necessity to setup, more vulnerability to equipment destruction, and another without much damage on the inherent power.
Base Guise with no one to help him draw or do extra damage doesn't seem to get much done very often. The team also lacks very many Ongoings worth copying, and a lot of the equipment to borrow wouldn't accomplish much on him.
You might win some games, but it would take you so long to get there.
PW Cosmic, Golem Unity, Termination Absolute Zero, Engine Bunker, Eternal Haka.
No deck control other than stalling the environment a turn. Bee Bot is the only environment destruction. No out of the gate damaging powers. Build-up dependent, slow to build up, and self/team damage.
This setup would neuter a lot of what Guise can do but he has enough card draw on his own to still be effective to setup his combos.
Legacy, NightMist, and Scholar on the fail team?! Legacy or Scholar alone would make virtually any team a win team. NightMist is one of my favorites. AZ I'm mixed on, but look at his healing ability. This team has ALL of the healing. And NW Fixer I think would work fantastic w/ Legacy. All you need is to hold off one turn and allow Fixer to get out Dual Crowbars and w/ Galvanize he's doing 4 and 5 damage every turn. Later in the game Legacy sometimes has relatively unhelpful card plays, which can be used to sacrifice cards to Fixer. AA can do so much! Can make any team powerful. With AZ and NightMist as hitters, AA is going to make them soar. Bunker I tend to agree with you on – I find him to be on the weaker side in terms of what I'm able to accomplish.
My nightmare team.
I am going to not try to get angry at everyone hating on Nightmist and AZ. Some people use some heroes diffently and find value where other can not. I pesonaly like Redemer Fanatic and dark watch setback there is just a whole diffent way to use her deck.
Also with the randomness of the game you will be supprise who will win. The Absolute Zero, Legacy, Argent Adept, Visionary, Engine of War Bunker Group I find to be amazing. Have you ever had a turn 1 Brain burn on Chairman? Easy win. But a group of low damge / slow build up can make it an up hill battle.
So I will go with the group I least enjoy playing. They are good but I get no joy playing them.
1) Base Legacy (Love youngest)
2) Omnitron (Too many reset just killed the fun)
3) Parse (I really want to like her, she has the power set I love)
4)The Naturalist (He is 3 of my friend fav so i don't miss out on much)
5)Expatriette or RA (Expat because i dislike guns, but hair tigger shenanigans, Ra is boring but great if I just wanna relax and watch the world burn.)
Kindly note I said change that 1 team member and it could be awesome. It was just a team that could step on each others toes if not played with a team mentality. Let's just say I could envision a cartoon episode where that team fails harcore during their first fight before etting their act together for the second act.
(edited because my keyboard sucks)
Oh, for a least enjoyable team, I'd go with Legacy, Tempest, Sentinels, Team Leader Tachyon, and Dark Visionary. Also known as "just say 'we won' and pick the cards back up." For raw power, I should maybe swap The Scholar or Omnitron-X in there somewhere, but Scholar is new enough to me that always enjoy his minigames even when they're broken, and Omnitron X actually has some bad matchups/draws, so it's less of a sure thing.
Legacy is really good, this is true, but say you have him on a team that has no ongoing/environment destruction and you come up against Dawn. Your other heroes can do decent damage and take out the citizens. But then Return with the Dawn comes out. And another copy. And you can't get rid of them. Or Channel the Eclipse (however many copies there are of that), so Dawn keeps playing extra cards to bring out more citizens and is rezzing the dead ones as fast as you can kill them. And two of them are Anvil and Truth, of course. And Sweat and Tears. And there's nothing you can do about it.
Okay that's just one villain out of...however many there are, but think how many villains have a bunch of ongoings that, if left out, can just totally wreck you through either buffing the villain's damage, giving them soak/immunity to stuff, letting them bring out targets. And very few of these ongoings tend to have a "you can do X to destroy this card" thing on them (Miss Info's ones are the only ones I can think of). So you would be stuck with them for the whole game once they came out. Yaaay, Backlash Fields!
I think it's hard too. I rarely play 5 hero teams because they generally make the game so easy. I'd like to hear your (and others') thoughts on 3 hero teams. I've been running with the available Dark Watch characters from the video game (Fixer, Expatriette, Nightmist) and though they do have their challenges and anti-synergies, they're probably not the worst around - at least against most villains.
I'm playing this team (well, Ra, Mr. Fixer, Bunker, Haka, Scholar) against Omnitron in Ruins of Atlantis, and it's going pretty rough. Sedative Flechettes and Singularities keep wiping the board state and they're just not doing enough damage fast enough. They can mostly work around the Adapative Plating Routines (both are out) but if this was Baron Blade with double Backlash Fields they'd be done.
Anything with Bunker...
I've said this in other threads over the years, but the key with Redeemer Fanatic is to not worry about Wrathful as much as setting up Divine Focus and Sacrosanct Martyr. Those two cards are excellent and the the base power you actually find Wrathful faster. You can then use those cards to nuke people, hurt yourself and still have cards in hand when it's Wrathful time
I have no problem with Bunker but I will admit Termination Bunker is the most interesting version of him. I just was trying to compose a team that no Ongoing destruction (at least without having one of those members incapped ) but any five hero team should still do alright.