Vengeance is at hand... or at least peeking meekly around the corner

So Vengeance got its first look on this week's Sentinels Live stream with Team Villain Mode being shown... gotta admit I was pausing every minute or so to get to gawk at all the artwork and flavor text for the villain cards since I don't own any of the "cardboard & ink" sets.

I'm impressed that what has got to be a pretty chaotic setup has been streamlined pretty nicely in the UI. I'm going to be eager to get my hands on this one. I'm looking forward to Parse for the heroes, too, as I like the look of her flavor and mechanics from what I've seen on the wiki.

I'm looking forward to it, too.  I own the physical copy, but don't get to play it much because it takes too long and my friends get confused with so much going on.  (I'm kind of not looking forward to playing on my phone, though--I'll easily lose track.)  The heroes are fantastic, though: Parse is a superb controller-type, the only one who can destroy a card as it's on the way to the table, with great deck control and removal besides.  The Naturalist is just a brutal damage-dealer with some nice defensive options.  And The Sentinels deal some heavy damage, too; they're a little vulnerable to mass damage but have great damage mitigation options, to the point where I very rarely end up low on HP with them.  (KNYFE is a strong attacker, too, but I haven't played her personally, and she's so simple I'm not sure there's any advantage to using her over, say, Ra.)

I actually prefer KNYFE to Ra now. They're very similar, but she has a far greater ability to chain multiple powers and card plays in a single turn. Not to mention all her extra damage bonuses!

What kills me about the game they showed off in the stream is Proletariat's incap art. He's just so sad, you guys. XD He's all, "Oh, back to Russia..."

I just want to hug him. (I'm also shocked he's a 3.)

Yeah, I agreed with the chat that he looked so adorably sad, too. Like, awwwwww... I'm sorry, I'll go back and let you win after all, just don't cry poor little commie dude...

Other things I found amusing:

That one Baron Blade card that shows what "normal" Nightmist looks like. It somehow never occurred to me to realize oh yeah, she probably actually doesn't usually have white hair.

That Ermine card with Ermine reflecting Argent's magic to hit Legacy. Between that and the Kismet card with him accidentally zapping Fanatic, I'm starting to think that Argent is basically like a magical Setback that's instead unlucky for everyone around him. Please get that poor fellow to a target practice range.

KNYFE plays faster and harder than Ra. But he's sturdier. She goes all in. She's the ultimate glass cannon. 

KNYFE and Visionary make a nice combo.

KNYFE and Legacy too.  Or give her cosmic weapon!

Guise loves KNYFE!

What's that? You can Hi-Five KNYFE and copy her ongoings and when Uh, Yeah get's destroyed at the start of Guise's turn you benefit from the destruction cluase on KNYFE's cards? How utterly horrible for you!

Vengeance (and the team villain format in general) is best with 3 heroes.  It is really busy with 4 and 5 is a slog just to get through all the stuff going on.

KNYFE is cool, but Parse, The Sentinels, and The Naturalist are all massively game-changing.

I've been waiting for Parse ever since I bought the app. For various reasons, she is probably my favorite hero.

Like I said in my OP, I like the look of her flavor-wise. Chubby, socially-awkward, needs glasses, likes doing data analysis? That's me!

And her deck looks cool, as well. Crazy deck manipulation is always fun.

Yeah, she's basically the only character who can look at a Devastating Aurora and go "Nope! Next, please!" :D.

She can also discard enough of her deck in one turn to make Tachyon jealous, and give everyone bonuses for doing it.

She was one of my most awkward characters when she came out, and the one I developed my campaign for as I realised I was avoiding using her, now I love her and her Fugue State promo just makes her more and more broken.

I really love Fugue State. I rarely get her discard engine running full-tilt, but even just playing her own deck-bottom is great.

The first time I played Parse was against Miss Information and she was so effective she became my favorite hero right then and there.

Yay Parse! I love her. 

I haven't played her enough, but I'm sure when she is released, I will find out how good she is. But I'm looking forward to The Sentinels, and KNYFE

Fugue State Parse is definitely a "Leader Tier" hero.

Leader Tier is the name we have given to heroes that drastically alter the balance of power, with very little card luck reliance.  She'r right up there with the Legacies, FV Bunker, Team Leader Tachyon and Dark Visionary.

We usually save them for really tough fights or revenge beatdowns.

I can't wait for Parse, she's amazing.

I will never forget the infamous "Parse is the worst hero ever" thread.  I won't say anymore.

Now my curiosity is piqued.

How could she be, when we have Mr. Fixer? :V

Yeah, and playtesting V1 Setback?
Shudders

Tonight's stream reminds me that the new running gag of mispronouncing Genetically Fused Physique gives me life. "Hermetically Sealed Pantsuit", indeed.

Also I am now curious about how the villain theme songs are going to go. Will the Baron get a third tune? Will the "villain wins" theme be based on which villain is in the lead position? Will Friction have an evil version of Tachyon's tune?

(Speaking of which, I am also still eagerly looking forward to the Hero Themes, though that's not Vengeance-based, obviously...)

It looks like we will get the Parse Variant. She had the Variant Banner on her card in the last live stream. Knyfe, Naturalist and Sentinels didn't have theirs. 

I missed yesterday's stream, i was at a comedy show supporting a friend.

Now I can't wiat till it's youtubed! 

You can watch it on Handlebara’s twitch channel. It was a good one, they showed off both Fright Train and The Naturalist.

Things went off the rails a bit

I'm excited for the Sentinels since they have a lot of card synergy together(duh, they're a team deck), and I'm looking forward to the Naturalist. For some reason I never really played him that often. I should give his cards a read again when I get the chance.

I like all of the heroes from Vengeance but I find I play the Naturalist the most out of them.  

I was looking at the card art for a few decks recently, and I just got to say something to get it off my chest.

Did Adam start drawing Parse a bit heavier-set ever since the release of the new art?

Yes he did.  It's definitely not as obvious from her original artwork and deck.  

Really looking forward to having Parse be in the video game. If for no other reason than I’ll be able to remember that updated intel should trigger… super useful card that I always forget I have in play.

Realm of Discord is my favorite environment to play in, but the stream reminded me there might be a bit of subconscious masochism involved in that.

And I like Parse being chubby in the more recent art, TBH. The SotM dudes have a pretty decent range of body types, but the ladies cluster in the "attractively fit" category a bit.

Just saying it's probably gonna confuse a few people why she's one way on her cards in her deck, and on her character card she's another.

PArse and The Sentinels are two of my favorite decks ever.

I love just how many things the Sentinels ca do in one turn, draw cards, play cards to draw cards, to play a card to find a signature that lets people draw cards and then use two powers. Love them so much.

Then get parse with multiple critical multipliers, discard 3 cards, draw six and give someone +6-+9 on their next attack.

I'm so excited.

I was rereading more of the Vengeance heroes' bios on the wiki in preparation and was kind of amused that Naturalist's bio paints Argent as basically being a Jerkass Mentor.

Yeah rereading his bio reminded me why he wasn't part of the Prime Wardens.   I imagine when he lost control further, to become Hunted Naturalist, that Drake wasn't too helpful then

Was it Drake that enchanted him? For some reason I was under the impression that it was the previous Adept

The backstory says Ahash'bhuta cursed him into gazelle form, but Drake (with the "blazing" red hair) is the one who helped him channel his powers.

@Powerhound_2000: I'm guessing that Argent only considered it his job so long as it was Akash'Bhuta specifically causing the problem. Or that his music only helped with the changes when it was caused by the curse as opposed to by stress.

(Not that that is really that much less jerkish never to at least check back on the guy every now and then, but...)

Yeah it seems he got him to a calm state, into a different form, and then left.   It's like this was more inconvience than anything to Drake.   He has seen what Akash'bhuta has done and has a chance to gain an ally who was cursed by his nemesis.   However, at best he helped stabilize him but couldn't be bothered by him much after that is the impression I get.

Keep in mind, we're hearing the story from the point of view of an antelope.  One that was human once, but still an antelope (and later a hippo, and then a crocodile).  It's possible we're not getting the full story.

In my opinion AA didn't do much for him because he litterally could do nothing for him. Naturalist had to go on the equivelent of a spirit quest for a while in each of his new forms, so all AA could do was help him make the first changes. The rest was up to Naturalist.

Maybe but based on what I've read it seems like the Adept wasn't as helpful as he could be.   

I've always sort of assumed Argent was like, "This guy's a serious tool, he needs to master these powers so he can be human again, but he could stand to learn a thing or two along the way." Like, he probably knows Naturalist's history and sees the opportunity to not only help the guy and forge him into a powerful ally, but get him to change his ways.

By being a jerk to him. :V

At the least I'm left with a pretty bad impression of Argent Adept.   He had his struggles early on and got help from what became the Prime Wardens.   The least he could do is see that a man who is struggling may need more of a helping hand instead of taking months in between visits. Maybe there was nothing he could do further which is why it was months between visits but it seems like between his bio and flavor text in his cards that the Argent Adept couldn't be bothered to check on him after he was in control.   

Granted, considering how annoyed Naturalist seemed to be with Argent in his bio, it could be that Naturalist at the end basically went "OK I agree that the whole tough love thing helped, but still, [bleep] off."

Still, maybe Fanatic's not the only one who eventually learned to (and needed to learn to) soften up a bit from the Prime Wardens. Especially with Cosmic (who seems like both the second-in-command and more cheerful than Argent) and Haka around to help with that.

You can try to make it sound better but you aren't going to convince me.    Drake was essentially a jerk dealing with a highly confused person.   Maybe tough love was needed but it's telling to ome that there is no reference to the Naturalist in Argent Adept's deck.   Hopefully when when the Letters Page is done my questions regarding that relationship will be answered.  

I think that at least is more because Argent's deck seems to almost entirely take place a little bit before he encountered the Naturalist. The latest Virtuoso of the Void issue in Argent's deck is #21, while the card in Naturalist's deck with Argent trying to help his gazelle form use its senses better is Virtuoso of the Void #24.

Other issues in Argent's deck seem to mostly reference his origin (Toll of Destiny presumably is about that) or his first adventures with the Prime Wardens (#17 is the latest issue while the events of OblivAeon were in the 50s, for comparison.)

I maintain that we don't have enough information to make judgements.  I mean, who encounters a person who their enemy turned into an antelope, and their first response is, "I know!  I'll turn them into a rhinocerous!"  Clearly there are extra limitations or circumstances that we are unaware of.

Off the top of my head, possible reasons:

If Drake sticks around too long, he risks Akash'bhuta noticing and turning the Naturalist into a frog.
The Naturalist's company built a bypass through Drake's bar, and he's doing his duty despite wishing he could let the guy rot.
Drake wasn't actually present - this was a dream quest or something, and he just woke up.
Drake actually spent several hours with him, but he didn't remember because he was a rhinocerous.

I don't think that any of those are particularly likely.  My point is that there are lots of reasons that Drake's behavior might be justified if we saw his side of the story.  Or maybe he's just a jerk.

I'll just throw one other wrench into the mix.  Are we 100% sure that it was Drake and not the previous Virtuoso of the Void?  I mention this mostly because when asked about the more severe artwork on the Dark Dynamics promo, Christopher said something along the lines of "the previous virtuoso was not a nice guy".  Maybe the previous one was a jerk.  All we know is that the virtuoso had red hair, but maybe they all did and/or the previous one did?  Additionally, depending on how long this all took (the bio just says "years"), maybe it was more than virtuoso that interacted with the Naturalist during his purgatory?

It's possible but I sincerely doubt the Virtuoso of the Void regularly has red hair in its history. 

This appeals to the demented side of my sense of humor, I admit.

But it does remind me we are kind of forgetting that the Naturalist was also a jerk (or at least a Corrupt Corporate Executive) before he got cursed.

But, the info in Naturalist's bio and card flavor is all attributed to Argent Adept in places, and I always got the impression that's Drake's own chosen codename and not what all the Virtuosos called themselves.

Still, over in another thread on the forums one of my curiosities had been "how are the Virtuosos chosen, anyway?" and the idea that the Void always picks on random redheads is kind of also morbidly amusing.

In other, non-Argent related news, all the decks that are part of Vengeance have been previewed on the Handelabra stream. Excluding a few musical pieces(which will be filled in by next week for the listening party, I would say), everything appears ready. It seems that the next expansion may be out very soon.

Yeah, I'm in the middle of watching the stream on YouTube right now. Parse's character portraits are made of cute, I just want to eat her up.

Also, LewdDolphin's terrible, terrible puns.

Also, also, listening party! Can't wait to hear the new music. :D

Phone version of Vengeance UI hasn't been demoed yet.  But yeah, everything else is looking good!

The Legacies, TL Tachyon and Dark Visionary, I all totally agree on, but how does FV Bunker serve as a balance-of-power adjuster, though?  Destroying Ongoings is nice, but there are plenty of heroes who, through a combination of card draw and deck balance, have almost-as-good ongoing destruction (Visionary, Nightmist, Wraith, Tachyon, Guise).  Essentially, FV Bunker needs to draw a Mode card to destroy an Ongoing destruction – how is that much different from (ex:) Nightmist needing to draw Planar Banishment, or Guise needing to draw Retcon?  Yes, he's got a few more Modes in his deck than they do, but Planar Banishment and Retcon can take out ongoings or environments, and both Nightmist and Guise have enough card-drawing abilities that it usually doesn't take long to get the card in their hand.

You are thinking of F6 Bunker, not FV Bunker.

FV Bunker's power, for the record:

Reveal and replace the top card of each hero deck.

If you reveal a mode, put it into play.

Another player may put the top card of their deck into play.

Broken up, to show that each thing is a seperate sentence.

I actually finally played Rogue Agent KNYFE recently, tangent, and found that she is really really good. I hadn't seen how good that ability could be with her deck before

Ah, I didn't think about the phone version. Can they really demo that on the stream, tho?

They have demoed the phone version before on the Stream but while other members on the Stream might play from their primes I don't think Jeremy will do the Stream that way again.