My First Few Games with Foil Promos

FF Tachyon - She was amazing, nearly broken.  Even against Deadline who kept trying to shuffle her deck, she easily did the most damage.  Any damage boost at all takes her from good to absolutely insane.

FF Legacy - I didn't use his environment control much with Argent on board, but he got set up awesomely fast.  He has so many great cards that only see play late game since his deck is so strong, extra plays getting them early left him a powerhouse!

PW Argent - His new power was nice for a turn or two... but he's the Argent so once he got some instruments going, it was less amazing.The strength boosts elsewhere on the team hurt it a bit too.  I can see him being amazing with someone like A/Z, but I think I still like the PW version best.  I'm going to end up playing Kvothe an awful lot because I LOVE his new art.

Cosminfinitor - well, I smashed myself for 8 damage turn 1, but managed to survive the game at 3 hp.  He was really fun, but also really, really suicidal.  He'll be amazing against villains who wreck his toys or if you see a better power early.

FF Bunker - I tried him twice because he was so fun.  This allows me to really explore his control options, as I'm not just digging for a gun.  He's... really fun and strong in a bigger party, great for cards like Don't Dismiss Anything, PW Fanatic, and Gimmicky Character.  This is my favorite promo so far.

Extremist Sky Scraper - Another I tried twice. Game was in the Enclave, so I made SS big and just tossed endangered species at the villain all game.  The second game, I managed to switch a lot more between sizes which was super fun. I really like how just staying in normal is more viable and how many cool tricks flipping between sizes opened up.  This is a seriously complex hero though.

New Parse - She was okay... got set up really fast, but was constantly short on cards. That may be variance, but without more cards being fed, the discard is a bit tough.

Who have you tried and what do you think?

I LOVE Captain Cosmic Brotherhood. I never got unlucky enugh to take the max amount of damage, but his chaotic playstyle made it so much fun! By far one of my favorite variants to be released!

XPW Fanatic is a blast.  Esp. vs. Plague Rat.

We've messed around with Completionist Guise a bit too.

Great Completionist Guise Combos:

1.  Original Tachyon to feed the trash burst cards->FV Tachyon to put burst cards on bottom of deck->Scientific Tachyon to put Burst cards on bottom into play, then just switch back and forth between Blitz and Experiment as desired.

2.  Cosminitor to get constructs into play->XPW Cosmic to weaponize them.

3.  XPW Fanatic to use Kill the Spirit->PW Fanatic to use Resolute with the damage redirected.

There are plenty of using 1 card to get setup and another to take advantage, like FVAZ->F6AZ or Fixer->DW Fixer, but so far these three really stand out as cool uses.

Another completionist setup is grandpa Legacy with the ring. He uses his power to give guise a power and guise switches him with a Legacy who's power he can use (and also gives somebody else a power)

I'm telling you guys, quite possible the best team I have ever played with is Legacy, Tachyon, Guise, and Captain Cosmic.  Start with Completionist Guise for it to work, and also start with Team Leader Tachyon and Green CC to start for best effect. Those two are absolutely two of teh best heroes in the game.  For Legacy, start with whatever floats your boat/is best for the matchup.

First, after CC gets some constructs up, you can sub in XPW CC and start hammering away.  Who says CC doesn't deal damage?  Also, a note; even without Completionist Guise, green CC is good.  Like, really good.  CC can destroy his own constructs with most of his one shots, making the negative part happen less often than you might think.

Play the game as you would, jumping around with Legacy so Guise can use the powers, and also for green CC is the constructs get culled, up until Tachyon has managed to get a lot of burst in and hopefully played a lightspeed or two.  Then, sub out for regular legacy, galvanize, blitz.  A friend and I did this combo, and we have a house rule that the game doesn't end until the end of the last hero turn once the villain dies, so we can deal overkill damage just for fun.  With this combo, we ended up dealing 137 damage to Infinitor.  That's double his life, so as you may notice, more than half of that came in the final round.  We kind of cheated, in that we specifically left him with 4 life the round before, but hey, fun's fun!   

For a fifth, argent would be silly.

I was thinking Visionary. Enlighten to help get bursts into the trash. Twist the Ether for boosted Blitzes of any type. Plus Crushing Lucidity from Unleashed Visionary for that little bit of extra damage if you're feeling hurty.

We don't do 5 player because it's way too easy, but yes, the new visionary is also very cool, it can deal a lot of damage.  I didn't have any promo before foil pack came in, and what I find is that every support character has a variant that turns them into a damage-dealer.  Some are better than others, like young legacy completely turns the deck around while Unleased visionary just allows you to contribute damage, but still. 

I actually didn’t love Unleashed Visionary. The ongoings weren’t really good enough for me to play over her one shots.

At the very least, Twist the Ether and Wrest The Mind tend to be no-brainer plays for me.

Keep in mind, one of the goals of the promos is to incentivize a different style of play.

Look under my name - I know that.

I still think it’s reasonably suboptimal. It doesn’t do enough to incentivize me to not play better one shots.

It incentivizes playing twist on yourself, putting wrest on things and leaving them out, and playing things like Mass Levitation, also Foresight is a lot better.

Not that I would play those when a one-shot solves a problem, because that would be dumb.

I like her a lot as a Parse-style support with a damage power.

I normally get it to 4 damage, but got it to 6 recently, which was awesome.

Oh, and guise loves copying her power.  Loves it.

I don't actually find Twist the Ether to be all that useful.  I mean yes, it's amazing, but I can't remember the last time I drew the blasted thing.

I haven't played with the new Visionary yet, but I think I like it.  I too often find Visionary's hand gets clogged up with ongoings that aren't particularly useful, and this is a good way to get value out of them.  And it only takes one ongoing to put it on par with most other damaging powers.

Like I said, unleashed visionary doesn't flip the deck around in terms of gameplay, it just allows you to contibute damage, whihc very well may not happen at all in a game with normal Visionary depending on what you draw.  And that extra bit of damage could be key, for all you know.  It cerainly was in the last game I played.  It was against advanced baron blade from core set, I am going to beat every hero advanced, I figured that even while advanced, BB would be easy.  Of course, he draws into "Consider the price of Victory" first turn, followed by both defense platforms, so I almost lost.  Extra damage from Visionary Unleased was just the push I needed a few rounds later to flip him before his turn started again.  I only even got that far vecause the naturalist variant is completely freaking overpowered.

The Naturalist promo is wicked, when you get a form.  You only cross 50% odds at 9 cards into your deck, or your starting hand plus 5 card draws.

So the longer the game goes, and the less destruction there is the better he gets.  But in those games there are other characters who do just as good, he just catapults into the Elite echelon of heroes.

He's largely invincible and does tons of stuff, but Legacy, Tempest, Nightmist, Absolute Zero Wraith all set up are in that same range.  It is just crazy seeing how good he becomes.

His real strength is when you get Rhino or Croc really early and are able to keep it.  His card draw is impressive so he has a good shot, and so while others rely on numbers of cards, Hunted Naturalist relies on getting the right card.  He can hit his peak earlier, but it requires some luck.

I think I've hit the bad luck spectrum on his promo as I could barely get going and just reverted to playing the base version.  

Re: Visionnary promo

I'm in the "like it a lot" camp. Concise text, clear intent, slight tweak to how you play her deck. Nothing game breaking, but still a valid innate power, and thematically appropriate. I think it is one of the most elegant of the new promos, one of my favorite actually.

Had our first games with the promos last night as a group:

First game was Captain Cosmic: Requital version, Completionist Guise, Extreme Prime Wardens Tempest, and KNYFE.

So... Captain Cosmic's power with Guise (any Guise) is just straight up bonkers. We were also playing at the Temple of Zhu Long, and Mysterious Ceremonies came out allowing Guise to draw 3 extra cards every turn. I'm pretty sure this should just be called "Guise Heaven".

While Guise was doing his combos, he would play "I Can Do That, Too!" to flip the next 3 cards in his deck out and play them, frequently allowing him to then play even more cards because of how Guise works. Strangly no constructs ever came out of Guise's deck to punish him :)

(I know it actually works across play areas, but Captain Cosmic kept drawing Construct Cataclysm, so he didn't have 4 in play either)

I think the villain died by maybe turn 4 or 5 and Guise had dealt the lion's share of damage. It was pretty amazing. Captain Comsi-finitor himself had a couple turns of dealing 9-12 damage with his power between Potent Disruptions, the one that deals damage by discarding his top 3, and Destructive Response. Personal massive damage is not something I ever really expected out of Captain Cosmic.

Second game was Skyscraper EXTREMIST, Young Legacy, Freedom Five Absolute Zero, and Tempest again vs. Akash. Zero got started pretty early and felt like a blast to play - unfortunately multiple plays of both Earth's Sacrifice and Rejuvenating Entropy (and some help from the environment) stopped him from STAYING set up, so it didn't showcase him that well. Except maybe that he's still pretty vulnerable to disruption, especially once his HP dips low enough that taking 3 fire damage is a risky move.

I thought Skyscraper would be a monster due to her scaling damage power, but Skyscraper Extremist had a lot of issues with getting her links destroyed - even though she can get them back using her normal power, it feels a lot slower than using normal Skyscraper's tiny form. She still seems really interesting, though. And hurling t-rexes at the enemy is always A+ for fun and comedy.

Has anyone played a game with just the new hero teams?

Im really curious how well the Freedom V with the new powers work together. It seems with all the card drawing and playing going on that the biggest issues with Bunker and AZ, namely getting setup, would be solved.

Im also dieing to know how the Xtreme Prime Wardens work together. Ive already got visions of Argent Adept boosting Fanatics damage and giving her extra power use so she can holy nova the crap out of the villain and following it up with Sacrosanct Martyr every turn. Thanx Tempest for that card back.

Dandolo has played most of the villains on advanced over in the 1000 games of SotM thread with the FV variants and I'm curious what they think about it.  

Nope, I guess I should have been clearer in that thread but those games are all the base forms of the Freedom Five. I’m actually still waiting on my FOILs, their scheduled to arrive today so I’m pretty pumped. When I have all the variants I’d love to go back and redo each of the villain advanced matches with the variant Freedom Five to see how well they work together by comparison.

The FV together are insane.

Here's how I run them to "game" the team

Legacy, Bunker and AZ are all about the team being set up fast.

Legacy should start focusing card play on whoever is best able to use it, usually himself.

Wraith I go very basic, Eyepiece, Belt, Bombs, then a second Eyepiece.  That's all you need, then just start feeding cards to Bunker and whoever else needs them.

AZ you want to dig for Apertures, as Snap and Impale are part of the gig.  Not too hard to pull off with this team.

Bunker is another basic setup, you don't want to go turret early, just keep using your base and be willing to blow up modes to keep using your power.  Get Omni-Cannon though, because Wraith is feeding you cards.

Tachyon gets a lot of extra cards from Wraith as well, so play as many as you can.

You should hit late game builds really early with this team.

You should get late game set ups early and with Blitz, omnicannon, inventory barrage and all those ongoings for AZ the game won't last long.

Ive had the same problem with going to many games without seeing a Twist the Ether. I found that Foresite helped with getting to it faster when i was playing Dark Visionary.

We played with the new Freedom Five, minus Wraith. They rip villains into pieces.

Absolute Zero, Legacy, and Bunker just get themselves set up really early, and then Zero becomes his usual monster self. Tachyon’s power is obvious to see as a late-game ridiculously boosted Lightspeed Barrage, but I found it more useful to charge up with just a few cards and get a good number of reliable 6-8 damage hits throughout the game. We were playing La Capitan, and Tachyon’s Blitz (+Inspiring Presence) was awesome for making troublesome Crew like Trueshot or the ship simply vanish in one go.

Bunker’s power was probably the most interesting. His ability to reveal the heroes’ cards and then select the most useful one to play feed into the theme of getting them all set up strong and early. We had him at the end of the order, but he might be more useful in the usual Legacy position.

I haven't gotten my foils yet, so I'm curious about a specific interaction. What happens if Completionist Guise tries to use his power on himself?  

He can totally do it. Of course, he will then be unable to use the power again. But it might be useful to switch to base Guise.

Pretty much what i expected with Freedom V. What about Xtreme Prime Wardens? I wont get a chance to sit down and play with the teams until my RPG group takes a break for boardgames again. Id play solo if i didnt have a wife and kids demanding my extra time. Damn those people who love you and want to be with you and arent gamers like you.

On a completely (un?)related note…I noticed that Handelabra demoed Setback in their last stream and that he had a Variant banner. Im not saying Handelabra should dedicate every waking moment to getting these variants in the videogame if you have time to add Dark Watch Setback (awesome by the way). But im not not saying it either. Dance code monkeys dance. As an old friend used to say, you’ll have time enough to sleep when youre dead. [All joking aside, i love the work they do]

The extreme prime wardens are god-tier. 

You got everything covered. Protection, card play, damage, deck and environment control to a certain degree.

So far, the best teams I've found are Hunted Naturalist, Team Leader Tachyon, Fused Captain Cosmic, and Young Legacy, or FV Legacy, Fused Captain Cosmic, Team Leader Tachyon, and Completionist Guise.  Either way, all of those heroes are beasts.  I've already told the Infinitor story above, but just today using the former team (with Hunted Naturalist instead of Guise and Young legacy instead of FV Legacy), I killed advanced Citizen Dawn before she flipped.  It was pretty nuts.

I was able to test out Freedom V and Xtreme Prime wardens today.

Freedom V is easy mode. Ive never been setup so fast with a team. By round 3 AZ was completely setup with both impales and a cold snap out and doing like 8 damage to the villain at the start of his turn.
Bunker’s ability to basically pick and play the top card of any of his teammates decks is just so good. I didnt really get Tachyon rolling but only because i was greedy and was waiting for Inspiring Presence. Legacy was amazing in getting himself and others setup quickly. And Wraith, who has no issues getting setup already, was key in getting extra cards into Bunker’s and AZ’s hands.

Xtreme Prime Wardens was a disappointment. Until i put it in perspective. I was playing against Grand Warlord Voss. His DR pretty mych nullified CC’s damage. Argent Adept drew a total of 1 instrument. Fanactics draw was horrible. And with everything conspiring against them they still kicked his butt with everyone in the teens or higher. I thought i was going to lose Tempest early, but Haka’s redirect with Ta Moko and DR from CC was king.

Id need to play the Xtreme Prime Wardens again before i can really judge them. Freedom V is just sick though.

We played the Xtreme team, minus Tempest, last night. Something I find really interesting about these Prime Wardens is that their powers don’t interact with each other the way the previous Prime Warden team promos did. Instead, these base powers are more individual, cover-the-bases things that stand alone.

What I like about the XPW is that it causes some of them to change their traditional roles in the team.  CapCosmic goes from primary support to damage dealer (especially with AA buffs), Haka plays main tank more so than damage dealer, Tempest's power is a support, AA's can be damage (though is still best for other hero setup).  Fanatic is the closest to her deck but eschews some of the utility in cards like Holy Nova or Divine Sacrifice for straight up nuking one target.  I just find these very interesting to play for those reasons

Teamwork is not EXTREME enough for them.

Fixed that for you.

Wait, did I miss something?  Kvothe got new art?  I didn't see that in the new Promos.  I thought they said they were not going to do that because it was for charity.

There is no Kvothe Argent Adept it just now Argent Adept in the title with the power renamed to Dark Dynamics.   The artwork is now of our known version of Drake who is in a white outfit holding a baton which has a rose wrapped around.  

Which looks unbelievably cool.

I played a game as Ra: Setting Sun last night in a game against the Ennead. Boy, his default power is brutal! You remove an ongoing which will be removed from the game (as it will be the top of the discard pile) and 2/3 other cards is a high price for two irreducable damage to each villain. It is very thematic as you really want to only use it in desperation.

I did deliberately incapped,not too difficult against the Ennead, and got all of them down to 4 or below so that Ra got the final blow. I thought that was cool.

One question though, if Ra: Setting Sun is removed from the game, would H change? I would play it that H is set at the beginning of the game, but it could be argued that Ra is removed so you are now playing with one less hero.

is fixed at the start of the game. It does not change.

Got a bunch more games in-

FF Legacy - if it weren't for just how good all the other versions were, this would be nearly broken. That free card play from the start is a godsend for everyone's set up, helps outpace destruction, and lets you set up the fastest uber Legacy in the game.  Add in TL or SS Tachyon or new Bunker and Wraith and it's nutty.

FF Bunker - In my first game with him, it was a three person. I just played him in two fives... and wow.  Get one gun out and Turret, then choose the best play for everyone the rest of the game. As long as that top card isn't immediately a mode, you'll never draw it.  It makes his hand the top card of everyone else's deck as he does huge damage. Awesome fun!

Xtreme Cosmic - Played with OG Legacy, new Parse, and Ra at various points... just wow.  This damage dealing is insanity.  Any boost takes him from good damage to an easy 9 or more a turn.  

Extremist Sky-Scraper - changing sizes a couple of times a turn is amazing (and with Proportionist, valuable).  This is not the best of the promos since so many are nearly broken, but it may be the most fun.

FF Tachyon - Remains silly with any strength boost, but is weirdly the most strategic Tachyon to play otherwise.  She goes long periods of time with no power to speak of and figuring out when to let loose is amazing.

Completionist Guise - The single best card in the game with any decent team.  Tachyon, Legacy, Cosmic, Bunker, Ra, Fanatic shenanigans are just amazing as can be.  In a decent team he's always got just so so many options!  

Tempest - Remains very situational. His new power can rule the board or be a nice extra. I'm fine with it because he has so many other powers and so many ways to draw into them.  

FF Wraith - this is my favorite Wraith by far.  Even the "draw 2 a lot as you get set up" can be fun, and once the first part of the set up is done?  She really lets everyone else shine.  Infrared Eyepiece, Utility Belt and her new power really sing.

Xtreme Haka - is a beast.  No surprise, really, but in 3 person games, he really trivializes a lot of villains.  He's good in 5 hero games, but in 3? Wow.

Parse - if Extremist isn't my favorite, it's Parse. It took me a bit to figure her out, but she's so good at stacking the bottom of her deck.  She HAS TO either see her draw or have a hero to help her with it, but once she does, she has an absurd amount of sick combos that come flying out and break the villains.  She was able to Utterly trivialize the Chairman's best plays and boost damage to him so much that it was almost unfair.  

I’ve played all of them, and I REALLY like the new Fanatic. Kill the Spirit allows her AoEs to become MASSIVE single target killers, especially with damage buffs, and getting able to choose a target for Divine Focus – and hit them with that extra 4 Fire at the end – is pretty huge!

Parse is also really nice, and AZ is fantastic!

My favorites, though, are between Sky-Scraper and Thunderstruck Tempest.

Played setting sun against matriarch and that was great fun. With the naturalist tanking her response, it was fun to take a life draining flame thrower to the sky.

I was just thinking about Freedom Five Tachyon, and realized that she’d combo up spectacularly with KNYFE: Rogue Agent and Parse: Fugue State. Move a Fleet of Foot to the bottom of your deck with Blitz, and then have the other hero play it.

Punch yourself with the Chaos Lord title for fun and profit!

Also, it works well with completionist guise. After you blitz a lot of your cards to the bottom of the deck, you can switch her to SS Tachyon, since you know what's at the bottom

I only played her once so far AND I never got a copy of Proportionist in play AND no one else had anything that allowed out of turn powers, but I never really saw any tricks from changing size at the end of the turn.  A couple people mentioned how good this is, but can anyone describe to me what makes this so amazing (beyond the two that I mentioned above but didn't get to see)?

Since all three of Extremist's powers have the possibility of switching her size (either explicitly to Normal or from the chance of playing a Tiny/Huge card from the bottom of the deck), nearly every power usage will trigger one of Proportionist's when-you-change-size effects. Depending on the direction of the size change, this either means a free card draw or pinging all non-hero targets for 1 melee damage every time you use a power. More power uses means more size changes, giving Extremist with Proportionist a draw/damage engine at least on par with her standard powers.

The size-changing effects of her powers also let her make better use of effects that give her extra power uses during her turn -- to use Fanatic's Embolden, base SS needs to have Micro-Assembler or another deck's power-granting card; similarly, Captain Cosmic's Augmented Ally requires either Micro-Assembler or size-changing cards. Extremist's size changes let her use either one fairly reliably without needing any other specific cards.

And if the stars align and you have Proportionist, Embolden, AND Augmented Ally against a villain with little/no Environment destruction? Get ready for some insanity:

• Start your turn at Huge size.
• Discard a Link (via AugAlly) to use the Huge power. Switch to Normal if possible.
• Play a Tiny card.
• Use the Tiny power and choose to switch to Normal.
• Use the Normal power (via Embolden) -- either play a Link or return the discarded one to your hand. Bottom-of-the-deck play potentially switches you back to Huge or Tiny.
• Draw and end turn.

2-4 cards drawn, 1 Tiny card played, 1 optional Link played, 1 free bottom-of-the-deck play, 1-2 rounds of 1 melee damage each to all non-hero targets, X irreducible toxic to one target, 1 Environment card destroyed, and either 3 projectile to 1 target or 3 sonic to everything. Also works with Tiny > Normal > Huge > Normal > Tiny/Huge, and can be repeated almost indefinitely until either SS is dead from Embolden and Huge power self-damage, your whole deck is in your hand, or the villain destroys the cards needed for the combo.

Or you win, which in my experience is FAR more likely.

Cool, it was the multiple power uses in the same turn that I was missing.  That also was not a possibility in the groups I played with.

Sidekick calls this art "Dark Conductor"

Interesting.   That name does not show up anywhere on the card.  

Probably in the same way everyone calls America's Newest Legacy "Young Legacy" without the reference.

True but there is more established history with that card compared to this one which has only been out a month and was previously known under a different name.  

True, true. I've always found it interesting that most variants have a different name/subtitle for the hero ("Omnitron-U", "Dark Visionary", a bunch of others), while some just use the original name (Requital Captain Cosmic, Redeemer Fanatic, Dark Conductor Adept, Golem Unity)

Kvothe/Dark Conductor Argent Adept will also bring up some interesting situations in the video game, because that would probably be the only hero that doesn't have different art for the base hero and the "foil pack" expansion they'll release later.

I would still love if they put Kvothe Adept in the video game, as a DLC of its own. Pay $5.00 or something, all proceeds goes to Worldbuilders.

Somewhere (I forget where), Christopher talked about the instrument that Drake is holding there. It's a conductor's baton, and is a dark instrument: that previous Virtuouso of the Void was not a nice person. So, yes, "Dark Conductor" is an apposite name.

Sentinels Sidekick (along with the video game) has the official names that we get from Christopher.

Except for Beardy Ra.  Because that is his official name.  Officially.

One-nipple Ra.