Decks which don't work for you

I just recently played a game where we randomly picked a villain - we ended up against Deadline.
Once again I was reminded of why I rarely play him, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a game against him as it just feels like he doesn’t work right; he’s never felt like much of a threat but also unlike other less threatening villains where you can have an enjoyable light game nothing ever really happens much either.
There’s very little interaction, he doesn’t feel like he’s doing much to the heroes and you’re just beating on him, and his environment destruction has never come remotely close to being a concern. So it just kinda feels like he’s mostly sitting there twiddling his thumbs as you hit him.

So, are there other decks out that you just don’t get, just don’t ever seem to work well for you, that you don’t enjoy playing as or against? I would imagine there’s different things that don’t work for different people, are there even people out there who really love playing against Deadline and can say how they can get a good game out of him?

I find that advance or challenge rules really spice up villains that may be otherwise lackluster. Challenge Deadline in a target rich environment can get tense if he pulls Pandemoniom Key early (which can often result in him permanently staying on his flipside removing an environment card each turn.) 

Deadline is a good choice to play in Rook City also (an environment I often avoid,) because RC can press the damage that Deadline lacks, but Deadline's flip side will clear some of the more annoying affects. 

Outside of certain environments being less fun or more frustrating (Megalopolis and Rook City primarily,) I don't think there's a deck a dislike playing as or with. Once upon a time I would have said Bunker or Expat, but playing them in the videogame gave me enough practice to appreciate them. 

For Deadline to me it’s an issue of just his Ongoings should trigger end of turn instead of start of turn making him a bigger threat.   What Aria suggested certainly helps or just have him start with the Pandemonium Key out while playing in a target rich environment.  As to a deck which doesn’t work for me it falls to the normal Miss Information and Spite.   Miss Information because the game can drag if you don’t get clues out at any reasonable pace and Diversonary Tactics can make it worse.   Spite because there until he has all of his drugs out there is often no point to saving Victims.  

Decks that I find that never work for me from the player side are Expatriette. I just don't seem to be able to figure out how to play her well. My partner and other friends enjoy playing her I just don't seem to 'get' her. Am happy to be told an easy way to play her. 

From the Villain side of things it's the same as Powerhound, Miss Information I quite enjoy playing if its just me or 1 other person but when you start having large groups and you have to go through her deck a few times to hit enough clues it's annoying. Spite I have had a few bad games against so I think I am a tad biased but should definitely try a game or 2 just not bothering with the Victims.

Lastly in the environment  Madame Mittermeier’s Fantastical Festival of Conundrums & Curiosities... just I have never won a game with that environment in play. I think this has lead to me playing it less so haven't figured out any of the niche uses but boy is that a doozy. 

With Madame Mittermeier's, I think a lot of the difficulty in that deck comes down to the fact that there are no targets.

Relatively speaking, targets are easy to get rid of.  There are so many ways to deal hp damage in Sentinels that it's rare not to have a game with someone capable of dealing regular, consistent AoE damage.  While you might have to divert a bit of damage-dealing to deal with a target like Char or a Portal Fiend, it's not usually too big a deal.  In the Festival, there's no such luck--if you don't have Environment Destruction, you're hosed.  And, while it's not uncommon, it's certainly less common than hp damage.  And, if you're fighting a villain that's Ongoing heavy, you're even more hosed, as Ongoing and Environment cards are so often linked, in terms of destruction effects (Blinding Speed, Consecrated Ground, Bee Bot, etc.).

With that said, I rather like the deck, but I tend to play it with lower-challenge villains like Ambuscade or normal-Gloomweaver to give them a boost in difficulty.

First, I'm going to put aside the decks that are generally agreed by the community to not be great. Mr. Fixer gets stuck a lot, Bunker's modes are not good, Spite is just a mess all around. Taking that as read. Instead, I'm going with my personal opinions:

On the hero side, Fanatic never quite gels for me, despite having played her a lot. It's not that her deck is bad - it has lots of neat cards and effects - but I usually find that half of her deck is something that's going to be useless or counterproductive at any given time, and I've only ever got one or two cards that I can reasonably play. She works objectively, I just don't have a lot of fun with her as my deck. (I mind her less in a solo game when I have four or five heroes.)

On the villain side, I see what the goal with Apostate is, but I just kind of dislike playing against him. He's way too swingy, and the amount that he heals up when he flips makes flipping him to clear relics a really terrible idea. 

On the environment front, the Mobile Defense Platform. I use it as an introductory location, often, because it does very little and that makes life easy for people who are still learning the ropes, but also it does very little. A couple guys shoot at the heroes, a couple locations make tiny changes, and also sometimes you just die. 

There were quite a few decks I just wasn't willing to play with, but as the videogame mad me play more and more to unlock promos I've gotten over most of those short-comings... Except for when it comes to Wager Master.

It's not that I dislike the character or anything like that, it's just the changes he forces on the book-keeping of the game.

Book keeping can certainly be an issue in general, like, Kaargra I love her mechanics and theme but the amount of tracking everything means I rarely play her outside of the app… I love playing against her in the app though.

For villains, hands down it’s Miss Information for pretty much the exact reasons already given. To me, she just is not fun to play against.

For heroes? This one is harder but I’ve got to lean towards Parse. I know she is a good hero, I just don’t enjoy playing her.

For environments, I avoid Ruins of Atlantis like the plague. I still have too many horrible memories of that environment just wrecking us. We’d honestly choose Megalopolis for an easier experience.

And careful with over generalization. I don’t know who this General Community is or what he has against Mr. Fixer, but tell him when you see him that he doesn’t speak for me.
I’ve found the blind mechanic to be an absolute wrecking ball. He was on my Team Broken(before FV variants) when I faced every villain in the game with the same group and lost maybe twice. Think that team was The only team I’ve played with who wrecked Spite before he ever flipped.

Agreed on Fixer. He has a ton of different possibilities between styles and tools, and both Grease Gun and Savage Yard can be game winning cards on their own.

I enjoy using Fixer, but I find that he only has a couple of those really good cards, and they're only really good conditionally.  So you have to have both the specific card you want, and the need for that card.  He gets much better with a Micro-Assembler from Sky-Scraper.

The ones I never choose are Expatriette and Setback.  Expat because she's only decent with a gun, and even then only the specific gun that's best against the current array of enemies, and it's really hard to set up her gigantic Unload combo.  Setback can be pretty good, but he oddly takes a lot of planning, and no small amount of luck, to get his really good cards to pay off, and even then, other heroes can be more effective with less effort.

I actually enjoy Miss Information, although some teams, especially of 5 members, can have a hard time with her.  Other than certain Advanced and Challenge modes, the only villains I dread playing are Wager Master (too random) and Spite (too predictable).

For environments, the ones I avoid are Madam Mittermeier's and Magmaria.  MMFFCC is a really tough environment--very dangerous and very hard to keep under control, usually more dangerous than the villain itself.  Magmaria is just boring--it has mostly the helpful Magmarians, which turn the scarce magma crystals into basically mini-Rewards--and the incredibly dangerous Behemoths, which can just wreck everything singlehandedly.

Magmaria's a good candidate for an environment that isn't super-hard but still no fun. The Behemoths are terrible and can't be prevented without deck manipulation. The Magma Crystals are scarce (I usually end up with a bunch of sedentary Magmarians for most of the game and nothing to do with them) unless you get the card that deals tons of damage and destroys all your stuff. It's just not a fun experience!

See, I've encountered that argument a few times, but I just keep thinking back to a game I played about a year ago.  Some friends and I were taking on Kargaara Warfang, and I picked Dark Watch Expatriette.  For the entire duration of the game–save the last two rounds of the game–I could not draw a gun for the life of me.

But, the neat thing was:  I was still contributing at a particularly high level.  Hairtrigger reflexes meant that I dropped consistent damage onto all those targets right as they came out.  Boosted by Aim, that meant that I could regularly tally at least one point of Crowd's Favor without any action on my part.  RPG Launchers kept the environment in check.  Flak Jackets meant that I could tank Kargaara's sizable damage with ease.  

I think I may have taken the double-draw once in that entire game, and only ended up with a gun (the Tactical Shotgun) by the time that the game was well in-hand.  But even without, Expatriette was a critical contributor.  While I'm sure it wasn't optimal, that game proved to me that Expatriette's deck is working as intended…

I agree, Aim is a surprisingly useful boost to Expatriette’s other abilities - especially with a gun in play, but not necessary.

And Mister Fixer ranges from “reliably okay” to “amazing damage-dealer,” rarely anything less.

Oh, sure, I've seen games in which Expat is MVP.  And I've had games where normally great characters do horribly due to terrible draws, ones where normally easy villains get the god combo and win handily, and ones where normally hard villains get shut down by complete chance.  But far more often, Expat just isn't very helpful.  That particular game sounds unusual simply because of its length (I don't think I've ever had a game with Kaargra last more than 5 rounds; more often it's about 3).

I'm sorry, but I'm just always going to have to disagree when people say Expat isn't that great. 

The Tactical Shotgun gives her the strongest single-hit power in the game that doesn't have a downside (a la Sacrosanct Martyr). Combined, Pride and Prejudice is the strongest double-tap damage outside of a Hunter and Hunted Compound Bow. The Submachine Gun and Liquid Nitrogen Rounds applies a damage debuff to all non-hero targets that don't have damage reduction on them, and with DW Expat's Aim, Shock Rounds on the Submachine Gun turns into a marginally less effective Compulsion Handle combo. With buffs and a Hairtrigger Temper, she can stop a Forced Redeployment by herself, the turn it happens.

As for the often-repeated story that Expat never starts with a Gun, I want to point out that she becomes a consistent damage dealer with just one. There are eleven Guns in her deck (3 each of Assault Rifle, Submachine Gun and Tactical Shotgun, and P&P). There are also 3 cards that search for a specific Gun (Quick Draw) and 3 that have a chance of giving you a Gun (Arsenal Access). If we do a little hypergeometric probability, we find that in a 40-card deck, with a starting hand of 4, there's only a 9% chance that none of those cards is in your starting hand. I'm not a maths genius, so I freely admit to using an online calculator. Screenshotted the results, they're attached to this post.

It's my honest belief that Expatriette is one of the most underrated heroes in the game. I understand if people find her boring; I think Tempest is boring to play, but a lot of people love him. People have different playstyles, so it's only natural. But when people say she's not useful or isn't good, I get annoyed.

Uh... sorry for the rant. I guess I've been thinking about this for a while...

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For me I find Bunker and Parse to be the two deck I would want built different. Parse is a very cool deck, but it's an odd control deck and I wanted a more "traditional" Archer Hero Architype. Fortunatly I've got Sentinals of Earth Prime to look forward to, Bowman should scratch that itch. 

Bunker on the otherhand.... Well, some promos do a good job changing how he works and variant hunting and weekly one shots have given me an a appreciation of how the deck works. That said I think it's a clunky deck that I would love to see get redesigned. Maybe Modes need a bit of buffing, (Recharge heals 1 hp around, Upgrade also allows one trash draw, leave Assault alone. Just spitballing off the top of my head)  maybe he needs more one shots (something like do a damage draw a card) or maybe its a mini Omnicannon (the next 5 cards discarded by Bunker go under here instead of trash, P destroy this card do X damage to a target where X=# of cards under it) But for the flavor he presents (upgrading military mega suit) he just come up short. 

For myself, and I think this is true for many people, there's a frustration in knowing that there are cool card combinations, but not being able to get them into play and use them. This effects nearly every hero.

The new Mr. Fixer frustrates me.  And by new I mean the dual crowbars rule.

Because now he has 1 card that makes him a really strong damage dealer, and people view him through that lense.  My favorite setup was usually Hoist Chain and either Mantis or Tiger Claw.  Mr. Fixer was an amazingly strong (H)=3 hero, who got less strong as you added players, and his styles and tools made him very good against advanced villains.  I play a lot of (H)=3 against advanced villains, so I found Fixer to be really strong as a Fixer, a person who could deal with a lot of different problems.

Also my wife loves Expatriette, who is also a very strong (H)=3 hero, and who benefits a great deal from being paired with her Rook City pal Mr. Fixer.  Taking those 2 and a third, most often Fanatic, Bunker (EOW), or Tachyon we won a ton of games against advanced villains.

Those 2 and Harpy make a fantastic team.  Frankly once OblivAeon arrives the New Dark Watch will get a lot of play here, because it is really a fantastic team.

Ok, started off sounding a bit like a Mr. Fixer Hipster there :). But that’s ok, you’re allowed to have liked him before he was cool.

You’ve intrigued me with the Harpy comment though. I’ve been wondering if Harpy was going to be that final piece which made the Dark Watch team feel more like a team and not just a collection of random heroes.

Yeah, the problem with Bunker is that the rest of his deck works fine, but his key shtick are his Modes, and they are very bad.

The best suggestion I saw was for each Mode to only block one thing, and to give one minor advantage (Turret and Recharge already have that).

Turret Mode: Play an extra power, skip draw step. Increase damage by 1.

Recharge Mode: Draw an extra card, skip play step. Reduce damage to Bunker by 1.

Upgrade Mode: Play an extra card, skip power step. When you play Upgrade Mode, search your deck for an Equipment card and put it in your hand. 

That sounds so much better!  I don't think I've ever played Upgrade Mode and I only play Turret Mode or Recharge Mode if I plan on staying that way for a while to just BUDDABUDDA or tank and draw for Omni-Cannon.  Which really doesn't fit with the theme, as Bunker should be switching modes fairly regularly.  Bunker has always been one of my least favorite since the first time I used him, his entire job was "skip your turn to avoid the self-destruct sequence."

The best way to solve modes is to change the "destroy at start of turn" to "return to your hand at start of turn".  If you want to go farther, if you return a mode, you can play a mode.

That way you aren't spending resources to switch modes, and you don't lose turret mode when you leave it.

Harpy doesn't make them work, so much as Expat and Fixer are already awesome together, and Harpy plays along with them and Setback better than Nightmist does.

There aren't really any hero decks that don't work for me, although there are handful that I think could use some tweaks (some on the OP side, some on the UP side).

On the villain side, I'd say Spite, Gloomy, and Deadline, although I still fight them from time to time when they come up in the randomizer. Spite just has some cards that provide the wrong incentives for the heroes and should do pretty much the opposite of what they do. Gloomy and Deadline suffer from the same problem - they were too difficult up until the last revision in testing, and the final versions with important nerfs weren't tested as much.

I'm very curious what the overpowered versions of Gloomweaver and Deadline used to look like.  They're definitely the ones that are too easy for what they're supposed to be, even on Ultimate.  It's probable I would have enjoyed the "broken" versions of them better.

Gloomy was more fun (in my opinion). I'd have to review the details, but I recall that he was basically the same villian but with everything a lot tougher. 

Deadline was less fun (in my opinion). The ongoings would do a lot more to disable the heroes ability to do anything, and thus he would more often have time to eat the environment. The ~last revision nerfed the ongoings without speeding up the clock. Still, I think Deadline needs more things the heroes have to actively respond to in his deck, like scarier targers. Plus more HP and/or a faster clock. 

FWIW, most of the time when Christopher has made a final balancing revision to a deck, it was a major improvement. Gloomy is the only counter example I can think of.  

Hmm, just thinking about Deadline a little...what about something to distract the heroes' attention while he commences exploding the world?

On the more invasive end of the spectrum, you could add non-catastrophe Ongoings like Miss Information's Distraction cards to his deck, or perhaps some direct attacks that cause special effects on the players ("If a hero character card was dealt damage this way, that hero's player may not play cards until the start of the Villian turn"). On the less invasive end of the spectrum, you could add this line to his rule card front side:

At the end of the Villian turn, reveal cards from the top of the Villian deck until a Device is revealed. Put it into play. Discard the other revealed cards.

Several of Deadline's Devices can be pretty scary and distracting, especially if they come out in combination - but they rarely do. This line would accelerate the Devices' appearance in play, and would also recycle them into his deck faster after they are destroyed.

I actually like Gloomweaver as he is.  You just can't think of him as a difficulty 3 villain.  He can be really fun to play with new people because it feels like you're doing a lot with killing zombies and cultists and stopping a demon lord without it being too hard.

I am with rj on the gloomweaver front. He is enjoyable for both the people who like punching demon /zombie face and sliding backwards in to a victory with an Infrared eye +Knife win.

Also I found him quite hard the first time I played him. So could be a hang up from that…

I only get the chance to play the PC version, so this may change how I deal with certain decks. 

Heroes:

-Actually, I don't think there's any hero that I can't work with. Some where a bit trickier than others, and needed a bit of training* before I got how they worked, specially Absolute Zero and Bunker, but that's all. 

Villains:

-The Matriarch, due to how bureaucratic the video-game gets every time you kill her birds (which are many), with all those confirmations of damage and target and redirection and more damage and confirming more targets and which effect should go first.  

...And that's it. There are some villains that I find more frustrating than others, but I have the privilege of being able to train against them with specific teams til I "get" how they work. Heck, I may even play more against them than with easier villains due to the challenge. I even like playing against Miss Information, when I feel like trying to solve her "puzzle" as efficiently as possible. 

Enviroments:

Now *these* can be a problem for me. It's easy for me to feel like they are "getting in the way", even more than villain cards.

-Megalopolis: Too much "you can't do stuff for the entire round" cards. Especially hostage situation.

-Rook City: A no-no for most games. Only played when I feel like the villain is too easy. 

-Mobile Platform: While others are frustrating, this one is too passive. Mostly it will just play cards to protect itself, then play minions to fix itself, then play a level to play more cards to support itself. The "plane falls everybody dies" card is pretty cool, though. 

-Magmaria: Like it was said, too little in the way of crystals, too much in the way of "vendors". It'd be nice if it had less magmarians, more crystals with interesting ways to be caught, and if it didn't destroy your equipment. 

-Atlantis: That card that won't stop playing villains cards.

* Playing a lot, reading guides and trying out the alternates. 

My table once got out Take Down at the same time as the Pillars in Ruins of Atlantis. It was glorious. 

Wait, really? The group was defeated or the table actually fell down? (both would be impressive)

So, are there other decks out that you just don't get, just don't ever seem to work well for you, that you don't enjoy playing as or against?

I think the original ruling before was Fixer hit one target and then a second for that same amount of damage. For example, Fixer would hit two targets for two damage with just Dual Crowbars out.  Now he hits ones target and then the second hit is based off what the final damage of the first hit then it still gets damage boosts.  For example, Fixer hits one target for two and a second for three with just Dual Crowbars out.  

Ok I seem to remember that now! 

Gloomweaver is one of those funny decks that can be really easy, but can also be real swingy.

I've had games where I felt like I was in no danger, and others that were nearly ended in one turn when Vast Following brought out two Cursed Acolytes, which can be devastating in a 5H game.

I think in a way, it captures some of how the cult is described in their appearances in The Letters Page -- a lot of the time, the heroes just deal with low-level cultists and foil their plans, but other times, the bigger names come out, the relics are brought into play early and you have a real fight on your hands.

To try out original Deadline (not perfect, some effects changed) the best way is to turn every instance of an (H) based number to (H).  So (H)-2 becomes (H), (H)-1 becomes (H).

That will take you most of the way.  Some effects that were changed made it almost unplayable.  Not as bad as the original Omnitron-IV, but really nasty.

Original Deadline also had inherent healing which was taken out, that made him more difficult to deal with.
As really now he has nothing much to properly handle a full on damage race against him while he’s destroying things. I’ve had games where you can basically near enough ignore his environment destruction and just beat on him and that then being pretty much all that feels like happens in that game - him doing nothing much while you just beat him up.

Because of this I’ve found the advanced rules don’t do that much to change what can feel like a bland fight still. So I’ve been considering putting more of his devices in play at the start of the game, as I’ve rarely seen them have much effect on a game. Individually they’re all easily enough dealt with and you pretty much never get them out together as the only card to speed up getting through his deck (unnatural disaster) actively goes against getting them into play.
It also makes thematic sense that he would already have these items ready and available seeing as he’s come to earth with them.
Just got to figure out what the right balance there would be if which ones/how many.

This is similar to how with Ambuscade I think he plays much better if you start with his traps already face up in the deck, because again they’re a feature of the deck I’ve rarely ever seen go off in a game otherwise.

So Foote I have since taken your advice and played Expat with other decks I think of as having a slower tempo and she worked wonderfully (Its normally my partner and myself playing 2 heroes each) And yes slow rolling to get a combo was fun and worked really well when an unload turned up with 4 guns in play it was a good day. I also realized I ... was misusing speed loading in the past so actually using that properly also made things better. So scratch Expat from my list of 'nah mate' heroes.  Which now means I can enjoy all of the released heroes at least a little bit. YAY

Yay! It’s always a little different playing a deck a different way from how one normally plays.

So what is the proper use for Speed Loading?  I've never found it to be very useful.

When I say misusing I mean forces you to take an ammo from your trash miss using not oh I optimised it wrong.

With that in mind I found it’s useful when you want all the ammo out right now. It also can free up out of turn card play for some else. Also if hollow point and tactical shotgun are killing the bad things why mess with a good thing.

I understand these are neich uses.

Speed Loading and Salvage yard are so beautiful together.

The free load from hand is nice.  The stacking your deck is almost never useful for me.

In my experience, Expatriette really only has two problems. They aren't game-breaking problems, but they can definitely combine to mess new players up, and they can be frustrating.

The first problem is that Expatriette has a 1-in-5 chance of not starting the game with any guns or ability to get guns. That's kind of a problem, because almost half her deck can't be played (or in the case of Speed Loading, can't be useful) if there isn't a gun on the table (and if she doesn't have any opening guns, that boosts the chance that what she does have is a bunch of useless Bullets and bullet-related effects). It doesn't happen super-often, but it happens often enough to create the impression that she doesn't really do anything. 

The second problem is that Expatriette is very vulnerable to equipment-destroying effects, because Quick Draw is her only way to get guns out of the trash and her search card  (Arsenal Access) isn't very reliable. This means that if you play your guns and then something goes wrong, she can stall out faster than any of the other combo decks do. Absolute Zero has a similar problem, but his is mitigated by more cards that don't rely on his equipment, and more ways to recover or draw equipment. 

Neither problem actually makes her deck useless, but also neither problem interacts well with her base power, which is great for setting up giant combos but not for handling weak boards. I feel like, if I were going back to the drawing board, the only actual change I would make to Expatriette would be to have her base power put either Pride or Prejudice into her hand from the deck or trash, and have the card that usually searches for them turn into a card that lets her reveal her deck until she gets two Ammo cards, and place them onto guns.

Maybe to cover a ninja?

I draw 2 as my first move with Expat fairly often. For example, if your best play is hair-trigger or RPG (but someone else can handle the issue). If turn 2 is gun (other than pistol), shoot, she will still be a pretty solid contributor. Of course, new players won't want to draw 2 on their first move. 

My main issue with her deck is I want Pride and Prejudice to be a bit better. Right now, they are pretty good combo with unload but otherwise not that strong, especially for her signature guns. For example, if they were both "deal 1 damage, use a power" so they were free extra shots that might be cool. 

I've actually bought some duplicate cards from GTG so I could write house rules on cards but keep the originals available for people who want them.

Her biggest problem is just plain lack of card draw. If Quick Draw had a draw and play, like every other deck-fishing card in the game, it'd be a huge help.

Or if the Arsenal card let you pull both into your hand, then play one.

I'd go so far as to say that her base "Load" power should be "You may draw a card or play a card." That would solve her worst problem right there.  Draw and play and she'd actually be pretty potent--but considering that would be in lieu of actually shooting, I'm not sure it would be overpowered.  I'm thinking that would be just about right, though I'd want to playtest it a ton before committing to it.

Just the simple act of being able to draw an extra card every round -- as in a certain fan variant equipped for Urban Warfare... -- smooths out her deck surprisingly rather a lot. Draw or play would likely do the same.

From a thematic perspective, I've never been a huge fan of the Vengeance format apart from playing against the Vengeful Five. 

It's been discussed by C+A that Vengeance was meant to be a one-off expansion, and that Villains was added as a means to add variety/a little more balance to the concept. Which is cool, but what we've learned from Letters Page is that Vengeance is a major crossover event that ties most characters into it, where Villains feels like…a bunch of one-off events that maybe coincide with each other?

There's nothing mechanically wrong with any of the villains from Villains of the Multiverse, but where I can get a feel for the team up of the various members of the Vengeful Five against a random smattering of heroes, I don't see a real clear read why say, Ambuscade/Slaughterhouse Six, Citizens Hammer+Anvil, Bugbear, and The Operative would suddenly team up.

They're competing to see which of them is the best at hunting down heroes?

I saw the Villains villains less as teaming up and more just happening to attack the heroes all at the same time.

I said something similar when the expansion was released (or when I got it in my hands). There was no unifying agenda for the Villains to fight together, there was no theme, no reason why there are together. The reply I got then was the description on the back of the box:

The many villains from the Multiverse have been bested by the Freedom Five or Dark Watch or the Prime Wardens or even heroes not from a particular team. Many of those villains are prideful and would not deign to work with others, as their goals would not align. However, some of them have seen the value of cooperating towards a common goal. And those have joined forces, even at cross purposes, to defeat the heroes who have harried them for so long.

I ended up creating reasons why a team was together before each game and putting them in order accordingly. Like FILTER being the main Villain and hiring Revocorp (Plauge Rat) and/or Ambuscade/Greazer for the task (so at least one 'alien' hero playing). Biomancer manipulating Bugbear and being assisted by zhu long in getting X thing from the Heroes.

One thing the base game did great was giving alternate victory conditions to the Villains (Warlod Voss and Baron Blade), helped a lot with the theme. Then it was not really followed through. We have Gloomweaver, Kaargra, Deadline and Dreamer. Spite could have had a victory condition if he killed all the victims. Apostate could auto trigger apocalypse if he had enough relics. Akash too looks like a Villain that wants to accompolish something and the Heroes are there to stop it.

Looks like Oblivaeon will have this kind of stuff with the missions. Hope it's enough to make the game mod fun!

We’ve gotten background that various villains from VotM did end up working together in the Letters Page.   It may not be anything lasting or a set team.   As to alternative win conditions I don’t think a majority of villains need theme wise and I think there would be limits as to how much you could keep doing without it coming across as being forced.  Spite really wouldn’t make sense to have one as he honestly wouldn’t satisfied having just killed all the victims he wants to kill the heroes too.   

It would be victory through demoralization. Spite is clearly taunting Wraith in one of the cards, so the theme that he is not just killing like an animal but with a purpose is there. Now making sacrifices to save the victims make more sense gameplay-wise.

So the heroes just give up because Spite murdered X innocents sound even worse to me.  

Yeah, there's at definitely some story behind the characters in Villains. For the life of me, even having listened through all of the Letters Page, I don't remember most of their crossovers. *shrugs*

Fully admit this is a personal gripe, though, and totally understand why someone would disagree with it. FWIW, Greazer is still thematically my favorite Vengeance villain on his own.

Haha it doesn't need to be that straighforward. Dealing psychic damage when a victim dies kinda brings the point across of heroes taking a toll at failing. You can make it a win condition by making the damage increase exponentially (4 damage to all heroes for 1 victim, 8 for the second, 16 for the third, etc). You can make 'special' victims, like someone close to the hero, that if that victim dies they lose, they failed as a hero and Spite escapes to another city.

I mean, there are great examples in comics of heroes fighting a Villain and reflecting how close they are of becoming the other side of the same coin. Fittingly, I think the most popular are Batman and Daredevil.

Yeah you’re not really convincing me with this Spite idea.  At best I might agree to seeing a mechanic like Potential Sidekick for all victims so you try to save them but an escalating damage as more victims are killed still doesn’t fully resolve issues Spite has overall.  

Yeah, I almost never save any victims against Spite.  He's just about as likely to kill them in the "safe" house as he is when they're just out, so why go to the trouble of saving them? 

Not a very heroic perspective, I know.  Parse is probably the only one who would agree with me.  I can see the rest of the heroes doing their best to save victims and Parse just being like "You guys know this is really inefficient."

I'm not trying to resolve anything, just pointing out why I think some charactes are more fun to face from a thematic point of view. And why I think Vengeance is more exciting than VotM despite VotM being stronger mechanically.

VotM villains are missing the inherent teamwork that comes across in Vengeance but you’d be hard pressed to convince me each of the decks aren’t as good thematically just as much as the Vengeance villians.  

Biomancer always makes sense.  Doesn't matter if others intended to work with him or not, they are acting according to his plan all the same.

Someone needs to make that meme-image. A steeple-fingered Biomancer looking all menaching in his cloak, with the standard meme text under it saying:

'Yes… Exactly as planned'

(Sentinels Tumblr is a very amusing place.)