Non-canon team ideas?

So me and some other folks have been having convos elsewhere about being a little drained on playing random games or canon teams. On that note I've been experimenting with trying to find some more unusual teams to run through everything. My current experiment is "Play All the Things": F5 Legacy, F5 Bunker, DC Argent, RA KNYFE or FS Parse, and anyone who loves card plays (currently trying out BOT Chrono).

Any thematic and/or mechanically connected teams you folks love playing around with?

There needs to be a team with Unity and Omnitron-X, that's for sure.

Maybe just the two of them. Robot and robot-making girl, alone against the world!

There's a couple variations on a team I call "Double Date" that I use sometimes.

It's either Expat, Setback, Fanatic and Ra; or Expat, Setback, Bunker and Wraith.

Here's a team I created way before the Letters page was a thing and info on characters was sparse:

Teen Freedom Team: Young Legacy, Unity, and Visionary... And OmnitronX, since they need a shaperone.

I like the "non-powered" team: Expatriette, Wraith, Mr.Fixer and Bunker.

Not a very powerful team, but a good "hard mode" against many villains.

I think your non-powered team sounds like it’d pack quite a punch, though they are vulnerable to equipment wipes.

How about Space Team: Captain Cosmic, Sky-Scraper, Parse, and (Rogue Agent) KNYFE

Soon, we can also have the Temporal Team: Chrono-Ranger, La Comodora, Omnitron-X, and Visionary

They'll get all the more out of Fixer's trash equipment retrieval card, though.

Yeah, "hard mode" might have been overstating things a bit. They can definitely deal damage! It's just that against the really difficult villains you need more synergy or powerful engines than they have - Argent Adept or Legacy would really improve the lineup, for example.

Damage and pretty good deck control. Honestly if Wraith gets two Infrared Eyepieces out, that's more than half the battle.

Mechanically, I like Team Robot Army a whole lot: Termi-Nation Unity backed up by any four of Omnitron-X, Rogue Agent KNYFE, Freedom Five Bunker, Greatest Legacy, and pretty much any Argent Adept.

Thematically, I'm looking forward to Team Magick: Nightmist, Harpy, Argent Adept, Lifeline, and maybe Scholar or Akash'Thriya.  And maybe a new Team Tech with Benchmark and Luminary (although there are far too many tech-related heroes to fit on one team).

One theme a friend of mine and I have run a few times is the "Girls Night Out": Pick 2 female heroes each and a female villain.

Bonus points if you follow it up with a Guys Night Out. After all, poor Setback needs to do something while Expat is out having fun for the evening.

Once Benchmark is out you could have a suit based team along with Bunker and Absolute Zero, I guess KNYFE could fit in there too.

And presumably, some time in 2019 or so and getting as non-canon as you can get, Daedalus and Star Knight.

Might be nice to do an "other world" team-up, like Tachyon, Johnny Rocket, Wraith, and Raven.

About a year ago, I came up with my own team based mostly off of characters that I really liked both as characters and mechanically and that drew from most of the existing teams.  Young Legacy, Idealist, Sky-Scraper, Tempest, and Unity.  This was before I knew Sky-Scraper and Tempest don't really get along, but that probably makes it even more interesting.

The Guardians of Tomorrow! 

Chrono-Ranger, The Visionary, Omnitron-X, and The Eternal Haka. They patrol the past for a better future! 

(In addition to mixing thematically, they're a powerhouse team mechanically. Visionary gives you deck control, Omnitron provides a grab-bag and gives double-plays to Chrono-Ranger, Haka is a heavy beatstick with enough card draw to have a lot of answers, and Chrono-Ranger just does all the damage.)

Deck Manipulation.deck

Visionary, Wraith, Parse

F5 Wraith or Bunker make that non-powered team really strong.  Esp. when you start burning for Salvage yard by discarding equipment.

Bunker and salvage yard are amazing, and seeing the top of Expat's deck is pretty fantastic.

I usually do F5 Wraith, Expat and Fixer when I want them to roll up somebody nasty, as you get the (H)=3 on advanced strength of Expat and Fixer, with a healthy dose of deck burning by Wraith.

I played this one for a long time, but I called it Minority Report. Wraith's Mega Computers, Visionary's psychic abilities and Parse's analytical capability let the trio discover crimes before they happen. They're constantly invading the villains' bases and hideouts before they unleash their next plot.

Jay

I was going to post a new thread similar to this one, but decided It’s a little too similar.

So recently I’ve been playing exclusively 3 hero teams, because they make the easier villains harder and more fun to play against, and when I got my fill of random 3 hero teams, I started looking for effective 3 hero teams. Here are some great small teams that work on difficult villains, and the whys.

DW Fixer, Skyscraper, Guise.

• The Skyscraper and Fixer team is overpowered already, what with microassemblers helping him to easily set up, putting compulsion cannisters on him with jackhandle becoming at least 4 irreducible damage to everything, and so many links out making it easy to let loose with bitter strike with little repercussion. Guise turns that up to 11, being able to copy all 3 of Expatriette’s base powers with I can do that too, and Lemme see that is always great with Fixers tools, plus Guise’s ongoings become extra fodder for bitter strike, making an Overdrive easier to play, if needed.

DW Expatriette, Extreme Captain Cosmic, Freedom Five Wraith
*Expatriette’s biggest weakness is card draw, but as soon as you shore that up with FV Wraith’s base power, and some extra power uses from Captain Cosmic’s augmented ally, you can aim every turn, and give her +2 to damage every turn before she starts firing. And then Wraith has the villain deck control, along with all her other strengths, and Extreme Cosmic can give a 6hp heal with a vitality conduit, or 3 extra power uses to a hero who can actually use them all with dynamic siphon. Smoke bombs even combos well with Wounding buffer for an extra 2 damage to whichever baddy tried to attack your whole team.

Setback, Chrono Ranger, Extreme Haka
*Setback and Chrono Ranger both need protection based on if they can get High-Risk behavior and Hunter and hunted out, respectively. Extreme Haka gives it to them, so they can let loose with all the damage. Setback can also give plenty of recovery, card draw, and ongoing/environment control as needed, and Haka can just tank it all and play his own recovery cards, while he waits for a punish the weak. Then a rampage + wrong time and place combo turns each 1 point of self damage from the rampage, into 3 points of villain damage to the lowest hp villain, for one token each. Ta Moko is pretty important for this team though, and Haka has to be very careful with his base power without it. I just used this team to beat 8 of the 9 Ennead in Rook city, and only Setback got incapped to a perfect storm combo that would have destroyed almost any other hero team I could have brought.

Rogue Agent Knyfe, Fugue State Parse, Sentinels.
The sentinels are so strong with help setting up, amd with extra plays/powers and Rogue Knyfe and Fugue Parse gives it to them easily, and then they keep Knyfe and Parse alive with copious healing and protection once set up. They can give card draw to Knyfe too, because that’s what she needs to wreck the baddies. The one weakness to this team is that there’s no card recovery from the discard pile, and if the sentinels stuff gets wrecked, It’s hard to get it back without a reshuffle. Parse usually can provide villain deck control, and she has all the ongoing/environment destruction you’ll need.

Sorry, those paragraphs are a little word vomity. But to extend this discussion, are there other amazing 3 hero teams I can try?

There was an event done here years ago, where we played teams of three and came up with names for the teams. My personal favorite that I did was Ra, Fanatic, and Unity as part of team Deus Ex Machina.

Once Oblivaeon arrives we can start making some cool themes for our teams:

-Redeemed: Obviously the Oblivaeon decks, with Omnitron as an alternative.

-Nature's guadians: Naturalist, Aksh'Hero and Scholar (maybe Tempest?) 

-Guns, Lots of Guns: Bunker, Expatriette, Chrono-Ranger and Stuntman.

-Yeah Science!: Tachyon, Luminary, Omnitron and Unity. 

-Not Human After All: Lifeline, Sky-Scraper, Omnitron and Tempest. 

-Techomagic: Unity, Scholar and Lifeline. 

-Elemental Fury: Tempest, Akash, Ra and Absolute Zero. 

-Dark Magic: Harpy, Nightmist, Lifeline and Dark Conductor Adept. 

Based on the latest Letters Page, team, "What do you mean we're not supposed to kill guys?"

Parse, Expatriette, KNYFE and Fanatic

That’s a neat group but I assume you meant Sky-Scraper not Expat

So two Parses?

Also, Burning Stickman I've been meaning to ask, are you my future self?

–

Matchstickman

Parsing error on my part for some reason

rimshot

That should be Ra, Setback, and Omnitron-X.  The Deus, the Ex, and the Machina.

I'm not at liberty to say.

But, hypothetically, you might want to watch where you're walking on April 15 2021.

Just as an FYI.

I feel like we could maybe take this to the next level:

The Morally Ambiguous Hero Squad: Dark Visionary, Dark Conductor Argent, Price of Freedom Wraith, Cosmic Inventor Writhe, and Dr. Medico, Malpractice

Beware the ides of April?

Yeah, always gotta watch out for those ides. They're sneaky as hell.

Found it!

It only goes up to Rook City, though.  Perhaps we need to bring it back?

Now that OblivAeon is in the wild, I’m doing a little threadsurrection!

Also an earlier suggestion is this thread - Team Gun: Expatriette, Stuntman, Bunker, Chrono-Ranger

Team Punch: Legacy, Haka, Mainstay, Mr. Fixer (honorary member: The Naturalist. But he doesn’t punch, he bites!)

Team Inventor: Luminary, Unity, Writhe, Wraith (occasional supervision from Super-Scientific Tachyon)

Team Sneak: Wraith, Writhe, KNYFE

The Secretly Villainous Team: Dark Visionary, Tempest, Writhe, Luminary

Teen (ish) Team: Young Legacy, Harpy, Idealist, Benchmark, Unity

Team Toon: Unity, Guise, The Idealist

Team Brawl: Mainstay, Stuntman, Haka, KNYFE, Sky-Scraper

Team minion (Or do I have enough health tokens): Akash’Thriya, Captain Cosmic, Luminary, and Unity

@Powerhound - Don't forget to add Visionary to the minion team.

Also some more teams.

• Team "I'm not evil. I just damage that way" - Harpy, Lifeline, NightMist, Scholar of the Infinite, Writhe
• Team "Dark Past" - Writhe, Expatriette, Omnitron X. You could also include any of the villains turn heroes from OblivAeon

I could add Visionary but she isn’t focused on her minions.  It would also qualify Harpy.   

I forgot about the birds in Harpy. I just remembered that Visionary was the first hero with a minion

Love it!

Don’t forget Benchmark and Unity!

Abusive Healing

H = 3: VG Dr. Medico, standard Scholar, any Tempest

H = 4: VG Dr. Medico, any Fanatic, standard Scholar, any Tempest

H = 5: VG Dr. Medico, any Fanatic, standard Scholar, any Setback or Skyscraper, any Tempest

Strategy: VG Dr. Medico gets "Experimental Medicine" out ASAP, and always chooses Scholar for his base power. Tempest gets "Cleansing Downpour" out ASAP. Scholar gets "Mortal Form to Energy" out ASAP. Even better if Scholar gets "Mortal Form to Liquid" out, and Dr. Medico gets "Healing Pulse" out. Fanatic plays "Holy Nova" whenever she can.

If you want Cleansing Rain ASAP Freedom Six Tempest is your best option. 

I'd do Argent Adept (any, but preferably PW) over Fanatic, Sky-Scraper, or Setback.  This is one of the first games I want to play when I unlock Malpractice Medico, probably with Captain Cosmic as the 5th.

I admit there were other semi-reliable healers I forgot about.

Team “Sunken Ships”: Sky-Scraper, Harpy, Captain Cosmic. 

I would drop Fanatic in that healing team and just throw the Sentinels in. Why settle for one Dr. Medico when you could have two? :V

There are lots of ways you could take the team up. I put Fanatic in mostly as someone with consistant damage. Scholar healed to full? Does Fanatic have Absolution out? If yes, Fanatic attacks Scholar.

I think I want to rename all combinations of this team up "Weaponized Healing".

Apostate: "Oh dear, they're healing Scholar again. RUN!"

Interesting to see discussions of healing without NightMist and Absolute Zero being mentioned, presumably because they primarily heal themselves. I'm not familiar with Dr. Medico yet, so can't speak to his abilities. Let's not forget Legacy's Motivational Charge. Use GI Legacy and his ability to give a point of healing and a power use, for extra measure.

Given all that, for the healing team I'd suggest: Sacrifice Tempest, GI Legacy, The Sentinels, Argent Adept, and (presumably) Dr. Medico.

I expect I am discounting The Scholar because I generally play him as a tank with multiple Flesh to Iron's in place, so haven't really seen much of his healing in action.

Scholar's there to abuse Mortal Form to Energy.

I tend to play SotI as a DR tank, and base scholar as a self-healing tank, who kills things while healing himself.

Same thing applies to The Scholar. Soooooo…

The Self-Healing Team: Scholar, Nightmist, Absolute Zero, The Naturalist

If Doctor Medico gets the right cards set up he can frequently (as in, multiple times a round) tell each player "Okay, you can either regain 3hp or use a power" :D.

Team shift: Sky Scraper, Naturalist, and Guise (With guest apparances from the Scholar)

Inspired Ghosts: Visionary (particularly unleashed) and Nightmist, along with incapacitated normal-size Extremist Sky Scraper, incapacitated Freedom Five Legacy, and incapacitated Knife Rogue Agent. The core schtick is Visionary camping out in a coccoon and Nightmist staying misty, while incap abilities let the intangible ladies put cards into play and use powers.

(Speaking of - has anyone else ever wished they could play the digital game with some heroes starting incapacitated? There are some pretty fun incap powers...)

I'm going to change my original team's name to "Scholar Cannon".

A comment from the podcast that early in the OblivAeon fight, the team goes to Europe and sees heroes we don’t usually see inspired me to make…

Team Europe:

(Daa do daaaaa doooooo, daaa do dada doooooo)

Captain Cosmic, K.N.Y.F.E., Luminary, La Comodora, Stuntman

Team Underappreciated: Base Tachyon, Base Naturalist, DW Setback, Base Parse

Team “1 target 2 damage”

Ra
Haka
Parse
KNYFE
The Harpy

We have my wife to thank for this one…

Team Missing Limb: Chrono-Ranger, Luminary, Freedom Six Tempest, Omnitron-X

does missing an eye count to take expat if you want a 5th player?

I'm sure I've shared this some where before, but it's changed a little and this is a fun place for it. My go to group damage team some times called team Group Hug, with that being at least a bit sarcastic. Base Legacy, TL Tachyon, Visionary Unleashed, FF Absolute Zero, and Base Tempest. It's Buff team damage, speed the draws, and group damage with a touch of control. It's a fun team to take on the Ennead, any team villian conflicts and can sometimes clear a nasty field with ease.

Team "Sentinel Army": Luminary, Akash, Unity, Captain Cosmic, Sentinels.

Bonus if you go up against Matriarch/Voss in Dok'Thorath Capital.

There's no real strategy to the battles other than "throw targets out on field and pray they don't have boardwipe."

I've done several digital games with:

The Rogue Warriors (Ra, Chrono-Ranger, Stuntman, and Mainstay)

And they're starting to make it into card game rotation as well.

If I lose a couple in a row,  I bring in their mentor, Greatest Legacy  (who's still alive in this universe).

The Void Wardens:

PW Argent Adept, Mainstay (Road Warrior), PW Tempest, NightMist, Harpy

It was a team I rolled up in random mode and I really liked them.

Freedom Five starring Guise! and Golden Guise Doctor Medico! (but I’m pretty sure Guise calls him “Golden Guise”, as in “You always know what to say to cheer a guy up, Golden Guise!” when he Retcons himself into the Experimental Medicine card or “Oh, I’m pretty sure we’re speaking the same language, Golden Guise: full body unitard with a domino mask and a chest logo!” on Preventative Care).

This is Freedom Five Wraith, Freedom Six Tachyon, Guise, America’s Greatest Legacy, Dr Medico.  Guise is the centerpiece of the team, literally and figuratively - he’s got everything he needs to shine here, with cool equipment to nab from Wraith, awesome ongoings from AGL and Dr Medico, and huge amounts of draw (Team Leader Tachyon + Fleet of Foot, beneficiary of Trust Fund + Clandestine Funding from the Wraith, Bolster Allies and Gung-Ho on Tachyon from Legacy, lots and lots of options from Dr Medico for draws or power uses which are often the same thing for Guise).  Once he gets I Can Do That Too and grabs Clandestine Funding, he and the Wraith can both set their hands to whatever of their cards they want and he should be able to pop his infinite (easier on the thumbs if you play Gritty Reboot and have him hit himself with Best Card Ever until he’s got his deck in hand).  This team is currently my most reliable buildout for dropping Guise’s infinite until Completionist Guise is in game.  Also, Completionist Guise is more reliable first turn, but if you’re playing against enemies that can’t be KOed T1 and/or there’s a chance you’ll drop the combo regular Guise is better.  Under these circumstances the ability to set the Wraiths hand however you like is also quite good - being able to chain x3 Impromptu Inventions to get Utility Belt and dual Infra-Red Eyepieces into play makes her deck control very reliable, although you may need to cycle her deck an extra time to make sure needed options aren’t in the trash, and later on her ability to loop Throat Jabs is very strong against large, single opponents.

Note that the app allows you to automate certain decisions you’re going to be making a lot, this makes Guise’s infinite much easier to manage.  If you go into How to Play, in the end of the Gameplay options (or go to “Cards” and go back one) it’ll explain how to automate choices.  Making Guise and the Wraith automatically target each other for Clandestine Funding, making Selling Out discard a One Shot, making Retcon auto-target Selling Out and auto-play Selling Out, all make this much faster. 

Edit: added screengrab of team beating OblivAeon clean, added advice on managing Guise infinite and additional benefits to the Wraith, made Preventative Care joke slightly stupider, formatting.