What would a Variant Operative card look like?

For those who want to take down the Bear when facing the Chairman!

I haven't listened to the episode yet, but are we talking a variant for her VOTM deck, a variant that replaces her card in the Chairman's deck, or a hero version of her?

I was wondering about replacing her in the Chairman's deck.

I also haven't listened to her episode yet, so this is me spitballing based on the Chairman's episode.

If I recall correctly, the Bear was a more hands-on boss, and the Chairman didn't emerge to take over directly until the Bear fell. So as an Operative, the Bear needs to be more in control. So here is my thought:

The Operative [Bear] - 15 HP

"At the beginning of the game, place an Underboss under the Operative. Cards under the Operative are indestructible, are not targets, and have no text except for their end of turn text, which still activates as normal. Cards under the Chairman are indestructible and have no text."

If an Underboss comes into play, place it underneath the Operative and play the top card of the villain deck.

Whenever a Thug is destroyed, the Operative deals the target who destroyed it H-1 Melee damage.

If The Operative is reduced to 0 or fewer HP, place a random Underboss from beneath the Operative to beneath the Chairman. Then, if there are (H) or more Underbosses beneath the Chairman, flip the Operative and the Chairman. Otherwise, restore the Operative to 10 HP, reveal cards from the top of the villain deck until an Underboss is revealed, and place it beneath the Operative. Place the other revealed cards into the villain trash. 

At the end of the villain turn, the Operative deals one hero target X melee damage, where X is the number of Thugs in play. 

FLIP SIDE - THE END OF THE BEAR

When this card is flipped, place all face-down cards under the Chairman into play.

Reduce damage to Underbosses by 1. 

The Bear is mentioned in today’s episode but very briefly so your main source of information about him is just the Chairman episode.  

Nifty!

Thank you! 

Obviously, that is a from-the-hip variant, and I have no idea how balanced it is compared to the standard Operative. My gut instinct is that it's a little stronger against more damage-focused heroes, and moderately weaker against heroes that do a lot of prep, because it's going to slow down the early game. 

Would the heroes be able to win if he's on the table?

If I wrote the rules correctly, you need to flip the Bear before the Chairman emerges; the Chairman's inherent flip requires Underbosses to be in the trash, and this prevents that from happening and provides an alternative in which the Chairman flips when the Bear dies. 

The chain would be: The Bear acts as though he was Underbosses, and gets beaten down while summoning thugs. Once you've beaten him enough, he flips, the Chairman flips, and suddenly the Chairman has hired a set of Underbosses who drop into play to fight. Then you beat the Chairman the old-fashioned way. 

What if the heroes get Underbosses into the trash without them entering play? (Omnitron-X, for example.) You could have a scenario where the Chairman flips before the Bear ends.

Adding the clause to the Bear 

*If an underboss would be put in the trash place it under the chairman instead

Would probably fix most of the minority report related edge cases I think?  

Yeah, that is a good point. It retains the utility of dumping Underbosses, without breaking the chain of effect. 

What about the prison breaks? Agent of Gloom has you discard any lab raids that come up, and then dealing damage. Maybe "Whenever a prison break would be played, discard it instead and restore the operative to full health." In this way the effect of prison break is maintained, by refreshing/prolonging the lifespan of the underboss effects.

Strictly speaking, you would need a variant card for the chairman that said to put the operative into play, "the bear" side up, instead of "assassin" side up.

Another thing that occured to me: The Contract has an end of turn attack, while the other underbosses only have their thug-pull as end of turn effect. Just an observation.

Crump.

Yeah, the Prison Breaks need something. Just healing the Operative drastically downgrades them; maybe while he's out, they bring out random Thugs instead of Underbosses? (Not all of them, that would be absurd, but maybe (H) Thugs?) 

And I totally forgot about the Contract having end-of-turn text. That one might need some shrugging, or some fixing, I dunno.