Advanced Mode

Since Christopher asked for more discussion about Advanced Mode… here it is! Who plays on advanced mode?

I do, all the time, and I guess I kind of thought that everybody else did too. But that’s probably assuming a bit too much, so here are some of the challenges that I’ve noticed on advanced mode vs regular.

Omnitron: Actually his advanced mode is kind of my favorite, thematically. I like the idea of the villan going into “attack mode” or “defense mode”. This strategy is kind of different, but I remember a game though where the Heroes would all attack him when he was on his +1 attack side, and switch over to attacking environment targets (Insula Primalis, I think) when he was in his +1 defense side. It was actually kinda neat. Of course you can just power through his armor if you have the right stuff, but sometimes its easier just to avoid dealing with it if you can.

Blade: Blade’s main challenge in Advanced mode comes from his initial side, you have to blow up his defense platform quickly and start hitting him pretty hard and pretty fast. This makes some heroes like Zero a little less good because they take a bit to get going. It’s also often wise to avoid attacking some villan targets so they don’t go into the villan trash. Visionary becomes a little nicer to have around because she can remove cards from the trash. Once he flips, +1 defense doesnt change play much, you just have to power through it.

Voss: IMO, this guy seems like the greatest difference between Normal mode and Advanced mode. Voss on advanced mode is hard… maybe harder than Dawn on Advanced mode. His initial side: heroes do -1 damage, can be devestaing. It shuts down the initial powers of Zero, Tempest, and Fanatic. Everybody else gets hurt badly too, though maybe not as badly as those three, with Fanatic and Zero being probably the worst for wear of the whole lot. If you also have a Gene-Bound guard (or 2…) out, your damage can get massively reduced really quickly. His flip side is no picnic either, he plays 2 villan cards a turn, which means he’s getting to Forced Deployment that much quicker. If you draw Forced Deployment mid to late game and you don’t have some sort of plan ready to deal with it, it’s usually a game-ender.

Dawn: Dawn’s initial side isn’t that big of a deal on Advanced Mode. Citizens deal +1 damage (including herself) which hurts, but it’s nothing like the -1 hero Damage from Voss’ advanced mode. If you use the strategy of “dont let her flip over” than her advanced mode isn’t astoundingly harder than her normal mode. This usually requires Visionary, but can also be done with Haka, or Tempest. But if she does flip, you’re in for some trouble. Immune to damage until she has 5 citizens (4+herself) out. Now it’s all about target selection. Kill the citizens that deal big damage like Hammer or Battery, leave the citizens that you can deal with (maybe Spring or Assault) alone.

I really enjoy playing on Advanced Mode, but most of the time I’ve been playing I’ve been teaching people how to play the game. Because of that, I haven’t played that much Advanced Mode, yet.

With Omnitron, I just feel like the battle goes on forever as you wade through his 100HP. I like his flavor the least of the villains too because the flavor doesn’t change enough for me from side to side.

I agree that the hardest part of fighting Baron Blade is his starting side. I think anyone would. Although I might suggest that the slow starting heroes tend to have a lot of potential for damage once they get going, so I wouldn’t count Absolute Zero or Bunker out in a Baron Blade fight anymore than I would in any other villain’s fight.

I totally agree that there is more difference between Normal and Advanced Modes with Voss than any other villain. I don’t think he’s harder than Dawn on advanced mode, though. He does have some potentially game ending cards, like Forced Deployment, but what fun would it be if the heroes always win?

Lastly, Citizen Dawn, I’ve only been able to beat her on Advanced Mode when I’ve kept her from flipping. And that hasn’t always been a successful strategy for me either. Even with deck control, there is a lot of chance involved in keeping her on her initial side. With that said, I love taking a team of heroes up against Citizen Dawn on Advanced Mode because I’ll probably lose more than I’ll win, but it’s usually a great fight.

I mentioned this in the “Epic Moments” thread, but during GenCon we managed to beat Adv. Citizen Dawn after having flipped her. We used her invulnerable side to let her play both Devastating Auroras, had Tempest keep us healed, then charged Omni-Cannon with impunity.

Geez, I’ve never played Voss on Advanced Mode. That seems pretty devastating to Absolute Zero. Legacy would be a good counter to that though.

I’ve played Dawn, Ominitron, and Voss on Advanced Mode but not Baron Blade yet. Most of the SotM games I’ve been playing recently have been with people who’ve never played before, so you have to go easy on them, at first :P.

I kind of root for Blade and would like to see him win by destroying the Earth with his terralunar impulsion beam once.

Oh, it’s MUCH more likely on Advanced mode. To the point of being a serious threat. I’ve seen it happen twice so far on Advanced mode when I was playing, and I like to think I’m fairly decent at the game.

Closer games are more exciting.

Advanced mode Baron Blade brought the moon down to the Earth four times last night. I attempted four different hero matchups to no avail:

1. Legacy - AZ - Visionary - Thought it'd be a fun challenge while learning two heroes that I haven't played much. That was a mistake.

2. Legacy - AZ - Tachyon - Losing so badly the first time made me think, "It wasn't AZ's fault." Nope, it was my fault.

3. Legacy - Tachyon - Wraith - Actually did worse without AZ this time around.

4. Fanatic - Tempest - Haka - Prime Wardens are undefeated in my household. I know each of their decks and strategies inside and out. Figured where the Freedom Five fails, the Prime Wardens flourish, right? Wrong. Got Blade down to 10 HP before he mooned us all.

Looking back at it, Blade on advanced mode probably requires four or five heroes worth of damage. He only managed to kill one hero over the course of the four games, and that was a Lead From the Front Legacy death. I'm going to try again tonight by running the Freedom Four in a recreation of the comic. Still, advanced Blade, much more difficult (and fun).

Well, last Tuesday, we managed to defeat Baron Blade (he had 10 cards in his trash before flip) using only three heroes (Ra, Expatriette, and Tempest) in... uhm... somewhere...  Didn't have too much trouble.

I haven't tried EE Blade on advanced yet, and I think he's different now, right? Instead of discarding one card, he discards two?

The proofs show (H) minus 2, which, in a three player game, would still be 1.  I have my cards away from me now, so I can't say for sure.  If it's not 1, then we played wrong.

Well H-2 is still 1 in a 3 player game.... but it is still one more than without advanced !

Beat him yesterday on a solo 4 player run, me took a bashing and he put 16 cards in the discard but didn't survive to his Starting Phase.

Well, it finally happened for me. I just beat Baron Blade on advanced mode with four cards to spare before he flipped. It was life imitating art as the Freedom Four managed a victory at the Ruins of Atlantis. The Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece keeping the one-shot cards (especially Hasten Doom) on the bottom and the villain targets on the top was the key to victory. That, and Bunker hitting Turret Mode with both weapons online within four turns.

Perhaps tomorrow night Mad Bomber Blade (on advanced mode) will take the fight to the streets of Megaopolis to seek his revenge ...

I only own the original game, and the expansions. Advanced mode makes my wife cringe, as we have been utterly destroyed on normal mode a few times by Grand Warlord Voss and Citizen Dawn. Then again, we always “randomize” the setup so we never pick the perfect team for the fight.

Come to think of it, our battles with the expansion villains have been far easier, so perhaps with the “H - X” mechanic makes advanced mode beatable by a random team.

This is a hell of a thread necro, but we seem to be going with it.    It's a topic I'm into, anyway, so here are my thoughts.

I play advanced almost exclusively.  If I'm playing with a new player (or a particularly fussy friend) I might dial it back to basic, but only if the villain is exceptionally tough on advanced.  (The vast gulf between basic and advanced Ennead comes to mind.)  And even then, the team can often deal with it.  When I play alone or with my wife, the team is almost always random.  We're cooperative gaming veterans, used to playing all manner of difficult games together, and we are usually successful.

Some villains get way fiercer on advanced mode.  As the OP stated, Voss becomes a powerhouse that becomes quite difficult to negotiate.  Flip him and endure two cards and a bunch of damage a turn for an easier time hitting him?  Keep him on side A and power through at minimum 3 points of damage reduction?  It's not always easy to answer.  The Ennead is on another level entirely - they become a series of relentless, connected, killing-and-healing machines.

Other villains aren't too much worse on advanced.  Apostate, for instance.  All you have to do is put somebody who can kill the Tome (or doesn't mind skipping a draw) at the front of the line.  If Apostate slaps you with the Rune or the Orb turn one (or both!) … well, those are generally the games I lose. 

I don't think the Chairman or the Matriarch are particularly harder on advanced.  They're just that tough.  When I replay lost games against them in my mind, I inevitably conclude that we still would have lost that game in basic.  (I fully accept that this is probably denial.)

Since the original post was from before any expansions came out, perhaps awp would like to give his opinions of the villains that have come out since? 

We never play Advanced because, IMO, the Advanced rules don't make the villains any more interesting, just more difficult to bring down.  Plus, my gaming group (the family) are more interested in a fun night of light-hearted villain bashing than in banging their heads against an Advanced villain.

Yeah, that's pretty much us, also.

My view is similar to Spiff... thank god for "advanced mode" because it keeps the Villains from being impossible on normal.

One of the worst things a game designer can do is listen to the 10 guys screaming "this is too easy" while not noticing the 1000 who think it is just right in terms of difficulty. This company is smart in giving the game a built in slider for both the regular and "I have a spreadsheet" crowd.

/agree.  I'm glad Advanced mode exists.

I'm glad you guys like it! That was really the exact inspiration behind "advanced mode"

And hey!  It works!

we have jumped back and forth. Given that we still cannot get a good (semi) reliable win on many villians, we have stuck to regular mode, except for occasionally - We hit up Advanced Baron Blade the other night for a change of pace and made the game a lot more fun than baron blade usually is - For us, he's trounced so easily now that we know the decks the added challenge was a nice touch.

Thats our general look on advanced. We play to have fun, and winning (or a terrible complete destruction as we had the other night against Citizen Dawn. The citizen that reduces damage to all citizens by 1 plus the one that states all other citizens can't be hurt and damage done to him is reduced by one... having to do a minimal of 3 damage to him to even start to hurt him... ouch!) but occasionally winning becomes way to easy, and thats where advance mode comes in for an added bit of challenge ... when the time is right

Blade made good on his promise for vengeance tonight, returning as advanced mode Mad Bomber Blade in Megaopolis. He got his revenge on the big players in the Atlantis fiasco by knocking off Wraith and Bunker before flipping. Legacy and Tachyon flipped him by the skin of their teeth, with Legacy losing it to a wayward monorail the very next turn. Then, everything just came together for the World's Quickest Woman. Down to 2 HP as compared to Blade's robust 40, Tachyon slipped on her goggles and started Hypersonic Assaulting her way to victory. Her fallen teammates played their parts well: Legacy feeding her Burst fodder, Wraith removing pesky ongoings, and Bunker bouncing Hypersonic Assault back into her hand each turn. Once her trash was "bursting" a double Lightspeed Barrage saw Blade's plans go down in flames once again. I like to envision Tachyon rolling her eyes as he monologues himself out of what should have been some surefire revenge …

I haven't played Advanced Mode yet, but from looking at the villains, I get the impression that sometimes advanced mode adds something more than just difficulty, and sometimes it's just much harder. For example, The Ennead is very unlikely to flip on normal, so advanced would actually add something more than just difficulty. Same for Akash'butha, where her sides don't really feel that much different on normal, while on advanced, you finally know why she's glowing red with lava on her flip side. I really like this. I'm not so sure if the ones that are just harder, like (once again, these are just impressions, I haven't actually played any of these and will play all of these eventually) Grand Warlord Voss, are for me. But even then it's obviously great the higher difficulty exists for those who do want it.

Going through the catalogue of current villains with a random team of three in a random environment is a very exciting endeavor, but I'm doing this solely because I'm solo and need to keep the challenge higher, since my experience won't be heightened by me talking with myself and sharing awesome happenings at the table. When I play with others, we generally stick to basic, unless we're fighting the Good Baron, or there are five of us.

Even tough-talking hardasses like me try to take it easy sometimes.  Last night, a friend wanted to play against Voss, and I actually didn't feel like advanced.  Three heroes tried basic, and got stomped.  Then three more, then three more, then three more.  We went through 12 heroes in this way.  Some may have had a chance, others did not.  I was angry at the game that started Psi-Weaver, Psi-Weaver, Frosthound, Conqueror. Using the last heroes we hadn't used, Wraith, Fanatic, and the Argent Adept coasted to victory in the Realm of Discord on the back of an Infrared Eyepiece, as well as Emboldened Argent Adept.  

I dreamed of fighting Voss all night.  It was horrible.  How I ever used three heroes to beat his Advanced mode, I wonder.  I'll have to go back to that someday.  But when I stop dreaming about him.

It doesn't happen often, but I've seen even "normal" Baron Blade completely eradicate heroes. A combination of backlash fields, force fields and the cards that destroy equipment can be deadly if played at the "right" time.

Edit : I just wrote in another thread that, for me, it feels like the Rook City villains are as difficult in Normal than other Villains in advanced - like if they were not really balanced in the same way than other Villains before and after.

Wouldn't you expect that, given their difficulty levels? The core game levels are 1, 1, 3, 3, while the RC villains are 2, 2, 4, 4.

My gaming group and I have beaten the original Baron Blade, both Omnitrons, Dawn, Voss, Plague Rat, The Matriach, and Ambuscade on full advanced.  We've beaten Spite on just his front advanced (little change on our normal stategy), and The Operative's front on avanced.  We Haven't tried Spite or any of the Infernal Relics villains or Bomber Blade on full advanced yet.

I have yet to find a consistent way to beat The Organization on full advanced.  That deck H scales strangely, a 5 hero team might actually be the worst for that.  I'm not sure 3 would have enough resources at the right times, but things like End of Days and Rampage help get around the limits.  I'm still thinking a team of 4 might have the best chance, and probably either needs Haka to Savage Mana some foes, preferably the Underbosses, or have Visionary put all the thugs back into the Villain deck.  Inconsistently, you could do the Tempest with 2 Reclaim from the Deeps + someone preventing the villain deck from playing cards combo (or preventing damage could work too).

I think I would prefer that normal be for either casual play or allowing players to use an arbitrary hero team, while advanced be for more strategic play and care with team building.  However, I feel that the usage of advanced has been inconsistent.  Plague Rat's advanced changes the tactics somewhat, given the influences over infected heroes, while there was little like that in the core set.  Spite's front advanced doesn't do much if you were planning to just not attack on the front anyway.  The Organization sometimes beats my group without advanced at all even with a team built specifically for the deck, making advanced seem unnecesary most of the time for it (though The Chairman flipping early is tactically interesting).  Original Baron Blade's back side advanced isn't very important because if you can beat the front on advanced then the back probably doesn't stand a chance.  I'm not saying straight damage boosts or reductions are bad for advanced, because I find Omnitron's encourages you to play differently, and the villains should probably be overall more difficult on advanced.

Overall though, advanced is a great idea.  When I first saw advanced on a villain card then I knew what the intention was and immediately had more respect for GtG.  It adds quality replay value to many of the decks.

On a side-note, I'm very much against extra shuffling on advanced or otherwise because extra shuffling often delays the game and puts extra wear on the cards.

Spite and Plague Rat may be rated 2, but I don't think they are in the same difficulty category as other 2s, or even 3s, on non advanced.

Quick quetsion about the Ratings

WHen it says 2 does that mean you should play with 2 Heroes?

And when going from normal to Advanced, how much does the difficulty change?

The rating number is just a number, meant to give some idea of the relative difficulty of the villains.

you should always play with between three and five heroes.

The increase in difficulty on advanced varies wildly between different villains, as discussed in this thread. Gloomweaver on his starting side isn't really any more difficult, unless you have purely melee/projectile damage heroes. Voss is much harder. The Ennead are much, much harder

If I'm not mistaken, the tier system was designed as a way to determine how many sentinel points (of the monetary kind) would be recieved for defeating a villain on advanced mode.  Given that point, it could be assumed that those ratings are for the advanced mode, and why it doesn't seem to make sense when comparing normal modes of villains.