Promotional Heroes

I realized this should go here, not in the gameplay section, so I moved it.
I was curious.

How many of you have played with the promotional hero cards, and how do you think they compare to the heroes’ base powers?

I’ve played a game with Young Legacy and another with Redeemer Fanatic, and at least for those 2 I think they work really well. Fanatic has a harder time dealing out lots of damage, but being able to keep herself alive and drawing extra cards certainly doesn’t hurt.

Legacy being able to punch more reliably is also a great help.

But I asked you. What are your experiences, and how do you like them?

I’ve played with all of them.

Young Legacy: She’s very good, 3 damage up front is nice, allows her to pack a punch, something that Legacy (original) lacks. However, you must keep in mind that she has less hp than Legacy (original) and that in the mid-late game, Original Legacy will likely be doing more damage, if you figure that everyone uses a damaging power, thats 3 damage right there (I’ve excluded himself, and assumed a 4 player game) plus extra damage every time someone plays a one-shot that deals damage, from double attacks (Exorcism) or from cards that deal damage over several hits (Savage Mana, Divine Focus) or from “area of effect” cards and powers that hit multiple targets (Cold Snap, Psychic Maelstorm). All things considered, America’s Finest Legacy probably does a LOT more damage with Galvanize than Young Legacy does with Atomic Glare, making me feel that Young Legacy is the weaker character. However, she’s still immensely fun to play, and caters well to people who want to play the “Superman” type and still do damage, where Original Legacy is more of a tank/support character. She is also good against villans where up front damage can be important.

Rook City Wraith: Is awful. Really, absolutely, terribly awful. She has 1 more hp than normal Wraith, but her base power takes such a hit its obscene. Stealth is awesome, and saves you way more than 1 hp if you just use it once. Sleuth is terrible. Consider: Environment Cards are usually harmful to the players. So why would you want to play more of them? This power doesnt give you much control over the environment deck, as if you see a card you like, you must either trash it (negating any advantage you might have gotten) or play it, which sets the environment up to play something else on its turn, which will likely be bad. If RC Wraith was just Discard it or put it back on top of the Environment deck I could see it being quite cool and a nice competitor for Stealth. As it is, RC Wraith is ALWAYS worse than Wraith.

Redeemer Fanatic: Likely is usually worse than regular Fanatic. But what makes her interesting is that she’s good in the situations that Fanatic struggles. For example, against Voss’ Advanced Mode, Basic Fanatic struggles a lot because of the -1 damage, she needs Absolution out to start dealing damage, and Redeemer Fanatic can get it quickly, as well as heal up in the meantime. Redeemer Fanatic plays well against Omnitron’s advanced mode as well, and is also quite good against Spite, where up front damage is not important, and it is better to focus on survival and buffing, which is perfect for Redeemer Fanatic. However, Original Fantaic still takes the cake when there is a lot of buffing going on, via party members or Plague Rat or what have you, and often shines against guys with 0 armor.

All in all, I think the original versions of each hero are stronger than the promo versions. Redeemer Fanatic probably is the best of the three as she fills in a weakness in Fanatics deck nicely. Young Legacy does the same for the Legacy deck, to a slightly lesser degree IMO. And RC Wraith… don’t play her ever.

I could see Rook City Wraith being useful in the right environment… such as Rook City. She can play those allied cards such as the forensics person and the detective which mess a little with the villains deck. Otherwise I agree… top or bottom would be much more useful just because if you like the card you ALSO delay playing a bad card by a turn.

Any thoughts on Ra? He has awesome direct damage but that sort of milling could be super, since his ongoings often provide better powers and he can pull up good one shots.

I’ll agree with Young Legacy and Wraith, but I really like Redeemer Fanatic. She’s so card-based that being able to draw and heal every turn is pretty nice.

No one in our group ever really plays Ra, so I don’t know enough about him. I’m playing later tonight, so I’ll give him a shot and see how it goes.

oh Ra! I forgot about him. Sorry. Yes, I’ve played with him too, here are my thoughts.

Beard-Ra is actually pretty decent, but he plays very different. Where Ra relies a lot of powers for damage, Beard-Ra definitely relies on his one-shots. Which is fine, cause he can get a lot of them. The problem with Beard-Ra is that if you dont get Blazing Tornado, reasonably fast, it can really hurt your damage output. Still, Beard-Ra is quite fun and enjoyable and an excellent promo character all around.

For the record, I like Redeemer Fanatic a lot. I simply think that regular Fanatic is better most of the time (IE: more than half the time). RF’s main problem is that she relies practically entirely on Absolution for damage dealing, which is great, but if you dont draw it or your stuff gets destroyed, you can be up the creek. On the plus side, Divine focus, woah-omg.

And trust me, RC Wraith is bad, even in Rook City. I’ve tried it. Play it for yourself if you don’t believe me. Then come back and try to tell me you wouldn’t have rather had stealth.

I’m kind of wondering… based on Haka’s card that allows him to draw cards when environment cards are destroyed and the fact that Akash’Bhuta’s association with environment cards, maybe RC Wraith can be made to work more effectively with those in mind?

well, destroyed =/= discarded, so neither would work well.

The interaction lies in playing more environment cards. The more environment cards that come out, the more that are going to get destroyed for Haka’s benefit. That’s a corner case that might work depending on the environment - you still wouldn’t want to do it someplace where the extra cards are going to kill you. Which is most of the places.

A lot of environment cards have conditions that allow you to destroy them only at the beginning of the environment turn, which means that you could sneak in the destruction of that card before it could actually do anything. Still means that the next environment card might suck, but it’s something.

Aren’t those the only beneficial cards in that deck?

I mean, sometimes the statuary falls where you want it to, and surviving Toxic Sludge lets you clear out other problems, but Rook City has to be the most hostile environment of the six we’ve seen so far.

The other problem with playing RC Wraith’s power to… maybe let Haka draw a card… is that the Wraith’s potential powers are so good. It’s definitely not worth it to try that over using Infrared Eyepiece or Stun Bolt. When you’re left using your base power, it’s usually because you just lost all of your stuff, which often means you can’t rely on anybody else having anything either.

You’re worrying me here. Because I think you probably haven’t thought it through, lets go through a few examples.

Megalopolis is largely considered one of the tamest environments. Cards that you can destroy at the start of the environment turn Hostage Situation (x2) Cramped Quarters Combat (x2), and Paparazzi on the scene (x1). Out of those, everything EXCEPT Cramped Quarters Combat requires all heroes to discard a card to get rid of it, making Haka merely break even on cards, and it puts the rest of your team at a loss. No benefit there. You get a benfit out of close-quarters combat, so 13% of the time Haka might thank RC wraith for it. The rest of the time it’s terrible. Dont forget cards like Impending Casualty that are easy to get rid of at the end of the enviroment turn, but have a major negative effect at the start.

Atlantis: Cards under consideration Hallway Collapse (x2), Leaking Rook (x2), Phosperescent Chamber (x2), Atlantian Font of Power (x1). I dont think anyone would argue an extra card is worth 3 damage to all heroes, so lets say Hallway collapse is not a benifit. Leaking room COULD be ok, if you made sure RC Wraith went last and thereby didnt screw her teammates out of playing cards. I’ll give you this one cause you can engineer it that way. Atlantian Font of Power would be allright. and so would Phospherescent Chamber. 33% of getting a minimal advantage with Dominion! Bonus. But really, aren’t we looking for better than that?

Primalis: Cards you can kill at the beginning of the environment turn: River of Lava (x2), Primordial Plant Life (x2). Primordial Plant Life unfortunately, is SUPER annoying for both Wraith AND Haka. We can’t really count that one in good faith now can we? 13% of getting River of Lava. I hope it was worth it.

Mars: Pervasive Red Dust (x2), Maintence Level (x2), Fire in the Biosphere (x2). Fire in the biosphere requires 2 cards to be discarded; so no advantage. Red Dust requires all players to discard a card, AND is annoying for both wraith and Haka, no advantage. 13% chance of getting the maintenece level. I’m sensing a theme.

Industrial Complex: The only cards here you can get rid of at the start of the environment turn is Experimental Mutagen. But that requires 2 rats in the trash. Something difficult to control. I’ll say a 8% chance of getting an advantage here. I’m feeling generous.

Rook City: Destoryable at begiing of the environement turn? Scum and Villany (x3), Toxic Sludge (x2). Everyone must discard a card from Toxic Sludge, no advantage gained. Scum and Villany deals each hero h-1 damage, I’ll call that no advantage as well. 0% of gaining an advantage. My god, by those standards its actually worse.

I largely agree with you, but Hallway Collapse here would be advantageous. It damages at the end of the Environment turn, and is destroyed at the beginning.

sweet. up to 46%. Definitely the place to be.

Oh, don’t forget about environment combos like Flesh of the Sun God + Volcanic Eruption. You can dig for the environment card you need.

We can further play with corner cases like Ra’s Scorched Earth or Visionary’s Prophetic Vision, but it just goes back to the fact that Stealth is just usually going to be more useful and predictable, and either power is just way less useful than the other powers available to Wraith.

Haka drawing a card and having to discard isn’t really a disadvantage either. If he has duplicates or cards the just isn’t in your playstyle then it’ll be fine for him to discard a card, and with how many cards he draws it will probably be a situation like that most of the time. As for all the other heroes they are pretty much screwed. Unless they are Tachyon, then I am all for discarding burst cards.

Personally I am not a big fan of RC Wraith, I was just pointing out a few things that may be useful. I probably will never play her at all, but I will not refuse to play anyone who does see a worth in her. To each their own. Just like I enjoy Young Legacy over Finest Legacy, why you may ask? Because I just like being someone doing the damage. Though if he is teamed up with Ra and Fanatic then I think he is really good in that situation, fiving Fanatic a plus three to damage, causing her innate to be “deal 1 target 4 fire damage and 4 fire damage” which sounds gnarly to me.

Yeah, I definitely would do that.

Any damage you’d get from Scorched Earth would again be largely to your disadvantage for playing more environement cards.

Also the reason I said there’s no advantage for Haka in situations like Hostage Situation is because EVERYONE discards a card. So you lose 4 cards to gain 1. Which is not a good thing.

Young Legacy also gets a lot of credit for churning out the damage in a 3-player game.

I didn’t have all the cards available for reference at the time. I was merely looking at the bright side of the power and potential combos that might work. Also, one thing to keep in mind is that Haka’s Dominion card isn’t Limited; he can have three copies of it in play, meaning three card draws every time an environment card is destroyed.

I’m not a big fan of the Promo Wraith but isn’t part of the usefulness of the power the ability to discard an environment card? If you have no Flesh of the Sun God then each hero taking 7 fire damage from Volcanic Eruption becomes a problem, you can avoid that with one use of a power… a power that can’t be discard through any card the villain might play.

If RC Wraith was just Discard it or put it back on top of the Environment deck

I like that. I’m going to change her rules on the oversized hero cards I use to be that, because that does sound much more fun.

Agreed.

Though I agree that Stealth is far more generally useful, the main advantage of Sleuth is to skip the worst environment cards.

except that you don’t really. Because you still draw the same number of environment cards (actually, you draw more, but I meant you draw the same number of cards on the environment turn) so you’re equally likely to FORCE a bad card to come up, if otherwise the game would have ended beforehand.

If it was -discard or put it back on top- then you could do just as you suggest, allowing the environment to play not-so-bad cards and discarding the worst. But what happens under the current set of circumstances if you draw a card that is manageable for the heroes? Well your choices are:

1. Discard it. Thats not helpful.
2. play it. You get the benifit of the card (usually quite minimal), but what you DONT get is a “safe” (or relatively painless) environment turn, because you’ll just play the top card of the environment deck.

Corner cases where Sleuth might be useful:

1. You want to increase the number of cards in the environment discard – perhaps you want to increase the likelihood of a destroyed volcanic eruption bringing an Obsidian Field in to play.
2. You want to increase the number of environment cards in play – Ra’s Scorched Earth does damage based on the number of environment cards in play.
3. You want to avoid a particular environment card – There’s only one Volcanic Eruption, so if you can intercept it and get it into the trash, you won’t have to face it.

For #3, if you don’t pull Volcanic Eruption, then you’ve to some extent wasted your power. Sleuth gives you the possibility of doing something useful, but it doesn’t guarantee you’ll do something useful. I agree that this is pretty weak, but to say that there’s no value to Sleuth is overstating the situation.

Also, note that as much as I agree that Stealth is better than Sleuth, I’ve seen plenty of instances of Stealth go essentially unused, as The Wraith builds up 4, 6, or more prevention and it all gets used on a smaller attack.

Also consider the case of playing alongside Visionary, you can put the worst card to the top of the deck and then discard it, ensuring it never comes up, not just moving it down the stack.

thats simply poor play. For much of what you are suggesting -avoiding a specific environment card, for instance-, would require the use of the Sleuth ability over and over, for at best a mere 50-50 shot of avoiding the intended card. As flamethrower49 mentioned, this severely reduces Wraith’s effectiveness, as you will be unable to use her good stuff, like Razor Ordinance or Stun bolts or infared eyepiece.

I thought the point was to compare the base power to the base power, not to compare the base power to any possible power that might or might not come out in a game. Almost every base power loses out to every other power in a given deck.

I would agree that until Sleuth lets you not play a card but not discard it either, it is basically useless.

But, if the next card is, say, something that would severely cripple your team like Self-Destruct Sequence or Pervasive Red Dust, discarding it can be immensely useful. Also, if it’s something that increases damage done but can be destroyed at the beginning of the environment turn, the heroes would benefit from it without letting the villains get in on it too.

Still, those are very rare, specific cases, so overall stealth is far superior; especially since you can use Visionary to do the same thing, but better.

I’ve just played RC Wraith and found it weak too.

Does anyone know how to play RC Wraith? I mean, surely it has been playtested, right?

I will say one thing about RC Wraith… really love the art on it. Looks much more “CEO” and less “neighborhood watch”.

Looks much more “CEO” and less “neighborhood watch”.

We’re talking about the card where she’s kneeling in an alley examining some mystery fluid on the pavement, right? I’m not detecting a lot of “CEO” in that pic.

I describe a use of Rook City Wraith to enable finding a specific desired environment card in this thread. Beyond that, though, this thread has not been able to come up with a concrete situation in which Rook City Wraith is superior to the original.

The best we’ve come up with seems to be hoping the next environment card is the worst one in the deck so you can avoid it entirely, or playing some card that will help the heroes first before destroying it. With most environments, that’s really too much of a crapshoot.

I believe he meant to say CSI.

Actually CSI as well.

I mean to say her costume looks a lot more high budget in that version than the bandaged version.

Yeah, I’m just going to change her power to “look at the top card of the environment deck; either put it back on top of the environment deck, play it, or discard it.”