Favorite Villains Poll

Just a simple, light thread on a subject that has probably been done before, but I can't recall having seen it lately and we have five new villains to consider, so I thought I'd bring it up again.  Out of all the villains in the game (counting the nemesis targets in the V5 decks, to go by what little we know about them...I suppose you could also pick Citizens or Thugs/Underbosses or whatever, though it's probably more sensible to pick the entire deck containing them, since they aren't really separate entities in a narrative sense), what are your five or so favorites?  Here are mine:

1.  The Ennead

I'm an Egypt buff in the first place, so working up a fully realized version of an entire exclusive mini-pantheon is a very awesome idea to me, and I really like the way they play, chaining and triggering off each other while dealing numerous 1-damage instances which can be boosted into the stratosphere.  Their advanced version is perhaps a bit too tough to be entirely fair, and the fact that they have no Ongoing cards or non-character targets is mechanically annoying to a lot of characters (glares at Fanatic), but overall they're just incredible to me.

2.  Proletariat

It'd be valid to pick the Vengeance Five as a whole as a single villain for this list, but it's also fine to focus in on their individual members, and of them all, far and away my favorite is the one-man Russian army corps.  I could go on at some length about why the concept is cool to me, but others have pretty much said it all before; while it's possible that my ranking him as highly as I do is more due to "new shiny" than deservedness, it's also possible that several years from now, when new villains by the bucketload have offered us new experiences, I'll still consider him the second-best.

3.  Kismet

I just finished an epic game against her, and it's what spurred me to create this list.  It occurs to me that her design is almost perfect by my standards; she unpredictably careens back and forth between relative inactivity and frenzied destructive power, making for a highly swingy game experience which nonetheless seems to remain basically fair.  With the possible exception of high-H games on Advanced, she's perhaps a little too easy, but in general I find her to be an extremely satisfying workout - not as much of a faceroll as Omnitron or Plague Rat, but not as insanely tough as the Dreamer or the Matriarch, and very active and entertaining.

4.  Citizen Dawn

The coolest by far of the core set villains to me, she ranks below others only because of how aggravating the fight against her can be, on a purely mechanical basis.  She didn't really need That Card, and the time it takes her B-side to unflip can be highly excessive.  But she's still a great concept for a unique and memorable villain, one who's both a recognizeable homage to Magneto, and an innovative original approach to the general idea behind him.  The slight veneer of quasi-Soviet flavor to the Citizens, visible on the back of every card in her deck as well as her pseudo-military costume and her eugenic attitude toward her daughter, just gives her the kick-up-a-notch she needed to count as one of the most interesting supervillains ever created, who I'd much rather read about than 90% of the Rogues' Galleries of both Marvel and DC.

5.  Highbrow

I gave myself permission to mention the Nemesis targets as individual villains largely because of this obvious pastiche of The Leader (she was almost tied with Equity, whose name suggests a more corporate version of Two-Face, but his flavor text implies that he may be a more conventional contract-killer who just happens to look weird, and his facial structure is at odds with the rest of his look IMO, so he just barely loses out as my favorite of the bunch).  I liked her just based on the name and picture, but her flavor text cinched it; the attitude of dripping condescension is just so perfect for a megalomaniacal lady genius, particularly one whose codename appears to indicate an aristocratic background (which in turn means that her opposition to Parse might well have an aspect of classist bigotry, and I do love rooting for the underdogs in such social struggles).

Honorable Mention:  Skinwalker Gloomweaver

None of the promo villains is really a spectacular improvement on their distinctly lacking original, but I felt like I ought to give some props to the very concept of revising these wimpy intro villains (with the exception of Spite, who is certainly easy enough for new players, but who I think makes for an unsatisfying first impression, given how many things he doesn't do and how nigh-impossible it is to fight him outside of his narrow "script").  While Spite is perhaps the most improved by his alternate version, I like Gloomweaver better for the conceptual turnaround between his extradimensional "dream-sender" version, where the deck really represents his cult more than himself, and the one who walks the world in mortal flesh, eventually becoming a Physical God who kills his own followers and slowly crumbles to death himself.  I feel that both his versions suffer a bit from the limitations of the game format - his deck tries to do too many different things to be very good at any of them, and the promo overcompensates for his weaknesses in a way that can be periodically unfair, while still occasionally failing to accomplish anything relevant.  But despite its awkwardness, it's still a cool concept which spins the original in a neat new direction, both mechanically and flavorfully, and so I'm picking it as my favorite of the four.

So, that's my list.  What's yours?

1. Cursed Acolyte

He's so handsome!

2. Cursed Acolyte

He's incredibly powerful!

3. Cursed Acolyte

He likes making things burn!

4. Cursed Acolyte

Did I mention he is handsome?

5. Cursed Acolyte

Fear him!

1.  Grand Warlord Voss.  Nothing says fun like all the minions you could want, and not doing anything to stop you from building up.

2.  Kismet.  Sure it is easy to ruin the challenge of this villain, but no one brings the shenanigans like Kismet, just don't counter build her and she's fun.

3.  Dawn.  She's nasty, and she's fun.  She brings everything, and not in a nice neat balanced package, she's got 4 or 5 completely different ways to make the game virtually unwinnable in the first turn, and the most hated card in the game.  Love it.

4.  Plague Rat.  Fast, dirty and mean.  Good times.

5.  Fright Train.  He is perfect.  Smash Smash Smash

Honorable mentions: Siege Breaker

It's me! Well... not really, but they couldn't have gotten closer if they tried. Red hair, beard, glasses, wide frame. I like it.

5. FRIGHT TRAIIIIIIN

Because train puns, mostly.

4. The Dreamer

Such a creative fight, and surprisingly pretty hard too, considering the low HP.

3. The Ennead

Something about having 9 character cards makes this fight really fun.

2. La Capitan

Besides making the John DeLancie joke, she's like a more fun to play Dawn. (not that Dawn is bad, but she's REALLY hard, which makes her maybe 7 or so on the list) Plus her theme is awesome, and her crew members are cool. Like Siege Breaker!

1. Proletariat

Because Proletariat. Still my favorite character in Sentinels.

1. La Capitan. Time pirate. SO GOOD. She was also my second game of Sentinels with my gaming group - the first was Blade, and while they enjoyed it they thought it was a little easy. Then I grinned and pulled out La Capitan. That game is one of the best - and closest - I've played to this day. Also, time pirate.

2. The Ennead. How To Wreck A Hero Team In Nine Easy Steps.

3. Akash'Bhuta. The limb-killing is an interesting mechanic, as is the chaining with the environment deck - something which also means that you can change the difficulty of the villain by picking a target-light or -heavy environment, which is neat.

4. The Vengeful Five. I just really like their whole shtick of "we're going to play five cards a turn and chuck out a dozen targets for you to deal with". Aside from anything else, they're a great exercise in prioritisation.

5. Baron Blade. Because you know what? He's great. He's a simple introduction to the game, who introduces pretty much every basic villain mechanic without feeling bloated and overloaded, and still manages to pose something of a challenge to experienced players on Advanced.

Oh, man, only five? Love all the Villains!

1. Citizen Dawn: She was the villain in the first game of Sentinels that I ever played back in dark ages (ca. February 2012), and her Citizens just utterly destroyed us. That is the kind of nostalgia that the other villains just can't buy.  I still tend to lose against Dawn, but have never gotten tired of it. Also, IMO, the Citizens make her deck the coolest Villain deck. 

2.  Baron Blade: I teach the game to newbies more often than not, and the first game any player plays, is against Baron Blade. Everybody knows what a Mad Scientist is, and most everybody agrees that pulling the Moon into the Earth is a bad thing. Plus he is really easy in terms of flipping, because, as fantastic as Omnitron is, new players just stare at me in confusion when I flip his card each turn. And I do like throwing in Mad Bomber Blade with groups where most players have played at least one game with me. Then I tell them "You remember that guy you fought last time? Well, he is back with a new nefarious scheme!" and everybody in the group just starts to take Baron Blade's plots personally and that is pretty cool, because that makes V5 Blade kind of a big deal to them, when they eventually get to him.

3. Miss Information: Just a great combination of theme and game play. Okay, usually at least one Hero in the group doesn't live to see the day when she finally flips, and sometimes the clues just won't come. But it's fun how a few 'totally unrelated accidents' lead to you realizing that your own assistant is sabotaging you. Totally did not see that one coming!

4. Spite: I like Spite, even though he always brings down the (Safe) House. You are not necessarily waiting for him to do anything. You can beat him before he is all drugged up, or you can go about and save victims, and bide your time until he goes berserk. I usually bring him in when a player beats an easy villain, and asks for someone 'a little harder'. Plus he comes in gritty street flavour.

5. La Capitán: Did someone mention that she is a Time Pirate yet? I have a fairly decent record against her, but she does not make it easy, and sometimes I just want to play a game where I need to put a lot of thinking into each turn, rather than just saying "Oh, I am sure it will go away if I just hit it enough." No, it won't. 

Honorable Mention: That award goes to The Radioactivist. Not for complexity or anything, just for the name. 

Seriously, though, while I'll stand by Dawn and Blade, I am likely to change my opinion on the other 3 slots daily. For instance, if he hadn't wiped the floor with me yesterday in a particularily brutal game, Iron Legacy might have made Number 5. As it is, I am kind of mad at him.

1. Baron Blade - Not a particular deck, but the man.  Always coming up with a new plan, even after getting beat down so often.

2.  Fright Train - He just doesn't care what you do.  He'll beat you down just the same.

3.  Proletariat - Clone awesomeness.

4.  Grand Warlord Voss - For a relaxing game of Sentinels, choose Voss, the polite Warlord.  "I don't mind at all.  Get all your stuff out."

5.  Cosmic Omnitron - Starts out mild-mannered and then goes berserk on you.

5. The Matriarch - The only villain on this list just for silly mechanics. Since Haka always hits the table with my games, Savage Mana turns this level 4 villain into a level 2. Great fun.

4. Fright Train - While I always make the mistake of calling him Freight Train instead of Fright Train, he's a lot of fun to go up against, and I appreciate all of his cameos all the way back since the base game. It's also super cool to have a villain turn into a hero, especially as a promo version of his nemesis.

3. Iron Legacy - Super hard, but I love when heroes go bad. Again, it's the theme that does it. Whenever I play this guy, I also have an urge to play Injustice...

2. Grand Warlord Voss - Ditto for most of the reasons already mentioned, but also because he reminds me of my favorite Marvel villain.

1. Ambuscade - While he might be considered to be the easiest villain in the game, his flavor and theme exude awesomeness. It's like a French Deadpool of sorts.

Well the Dreamer's HP is kind of not the point, of course.  Let's see, if you totalled up the average HP of the Projections you get…there's a total 18 projections with 86 combined HP among them, so the HP of each works out to an average 4.7, and you start the game with H of them, have to kill them all, and then have to kill 2H more to win, so with H = 4, their combined HP on average would be about 56.4.  That's more than Ambuscade, but it is indeed less than most villains.  However, in an H=5 game with the absolute worst luck possible on Projections, you might start with Arachnoid, Whipacorn, Oni, Demon and Dark Hero, then get two more of each in the final boss rush, for a total of 81 HP - on the high side for villains even before you reckon with all the DR, and it doesn't count any extra Projections that the Dreamer plays on her turns prior to flipping.

I'd say she compares pretty solidly to Citizen Dawn in terms of HP, except with an extra loss condition you have to watch out for, and no ability to bypass the secondary targets (other than Citizen Truth) even if it'd be easier to win by just focusing fire.  As far as I can tell, there's no real tradeoff there, apart from the lack of That Card, and the ability to outright win with two Ends of Days in as little as two rounds (if you have H=5 and pull Violent Nightmares on all four card plays after the flip, putting ten Projections into play right off the bat; no other H number enables this outcome, improbable though it is even then - unless there's some outside help from Atlantis or Rook City, of course).

I don't get it.

she's like a more fun to play Dawn.

You and I have very different definitions of "fun"…

That's how I feel about Plague Rat.  Voss at least can win the game if you don't kill him.  Rat, you can just sit back and turtle all game (said "turtling" needs to involve something other than damage reduction, but it's not impossible, particularly for a team like Scholar + Sentinels + Omnitron-X), then kill him in one abrupt blitz where he himself probably increases the damage you do to him.  I should do another thread with my list of best newbie villains; I'd put him in the neighborhood of #4.

Thanos or Annihilus?

Most definitely Thanos.

One thing about Voss is the games are rare where you absolutely stomp him, there's no easy trick to negate all his damage, there's no easy counter to all his moves (other than Hairtrigger with +3 damage) and he always feels like he's close to beating you when you pull it out.

I don't think I've had more than a few games where it felt like we dominated him.

Space Ships on the first turn make babies cry. So. Many. Tears. 

On G+ the other day, we stomped him at the mars base by going flesh of the sun god +imbued fire and just letting 2 fire in the biosphere kill everything but the firesworn. It was awesome

Voss almost never destroys Ongoings and I believe actually-never destroys Equipment.  He does have a lot of damage and the minion overrun victory as a possibility (though I don't believe that's ever actually happened to me, it just forces the heroes to play aggressively instead of turtling, and often they get killed as a result), so I agree he's hard, but he has that as a glaring weakness.  I've fought him seven times and won four of those games; two of the victories and two of the losses were on Advanced, while the non-advanced loss was in Tomb of Anubis (which I'm currently 3-8 in) and my first Advanced win was in the Final Wasteland (which is my "safe zone"; I've never been defeated there, though admittedly I'm reluctant to fight really tough villains there and have that change).  The first game I ever played against Voss, Tempest was the sole survivor, while in my second advanced win, he was the only casualty.  Voss's losses have been some combination of hero power (two of the victories featured the Scholar, once I also had Young Legacy, and a third victory featured Chrono-Ranger, even though it was Advanced; against non-advanced, Tempest's nemesis bonus is pretty epic considering how many damage instances he can get) and luck; when he does things like playing Translocators without Minions or putting all his Forced Deployments in a row, I do a little happy dance.

Yeah, Annihilus always seemed kinda pointless to me, just a random bug-eyed monster cliche.  Thanos isn't a personal fave, but I can definitely see why someone would like him.

I’ve lost to voss by his win condition. It was bunker CR and scholar. A guard and tamar were both put on the first turn. CR did nothing, it took Bunker 3 turns to kill the guard and scholar didn’t draw a grace under fire til a ship came out, so I had to kill that. At the start of the 4th round it was over.

That’s the only time I have lost to him and he’s my favorite villain

My favorite, so far -- note that I haven't played against everybody yet:

1) Ambuscade. Most of my matches are played with relatively new players, and I like him slightly better than Baron Blade as an intro matchup

2) Omnitron - when the Grasshopper and I had a borrowed copy of the first edition, it took us ages to win against him.

3) Voss - for almost all of the reasons everybody else has said.

4) Ennead - Really innovative, and a match I need to try again soon.

5) Akash'bhuta - she's really swingy, and I still have lost to her more than I've won (maybe that's because the Grasshopper keeps picking target-rich environments to play against her in).

I find Voss, Akash, and the Ennead to be the most consistently fun to play against.  Spite and Iron Legacy have the best flavor, though.

The Ennead is one of my new favorites too. Ive only had infernal relics for a couple weeks now but some how ive played them twice as much as any of the other new villains. Im also enjoying spanking apostate

I would like to be able to expand my list of newbie villains, but I really don't feel Ambuscade for that; his traps are too weird, unlike anything else in SOTM, and the long chains of cards he can play seem like they might be too much for a first-timer to handle.  When bored with Blade and Tron, I've used Plague Rat, Gloomweaver, and Apostate to fairly good effect.  Akash'bhuta and GloomSpite might also work - never regular Spite, though, his invincibility is too frustrating to try to fight through.

I had Akash'bhuta on my list of potential newbie villains for a while, and then went through several games running where we got steamrolled to the point that at least one of the people playing found it distinctly un-fun.

Akash'bhuta depends on the environment.  Put her in an environment lacking targets and she's easy.  Put her in the Tomb of Anubis and prepare for a fight.

Or Advanced mode with a target-sparce environment makes for some very good "easy" games as well

The Grasshopper and I got shellacked together in the Tomb (his choice, not mine); the newbie game where we got steamrolled was in Insula, IIRC.

Tomb of Anubis is probably not actually harder than Rook City.  However, I have won 4 of my 9 games in Rook City, and only 3 out of 11 games in the Tomb, so I'm definitely more scared of the Tomb at this point (not that there isn't some fear of RC keeping me from increasing my count of games there).

The scaling on the damage on different cards means the number of players has a huge effect on how hard a given environment or villain is. Most of the games I've played have been two-player with my just my girlfriend and myself.

Akash'Bhuta is relatively easy in two-player mode, as long as both characters can deal some damage. Most of the damaging cards either deal H-2 or H-1 damage, meaning her damage output in a two-player game is negligible. In the games we lost, it was because we had one support character and one damage dealer, and the damage dealer dropped to lower life and got taken out by Ensnaring Limbs. 

We've only tried Dawn once, but she was pretty easy. You don't have to wait very long for her to flip back when you're only waiting for two Citizens to show up, meaning her indestructibility isn't too onerous.

In contrast, Voss seems almost unbeatable with only two players. The minion damage doesn't scale at all, so you end up taking obscene amounts of damage from them very quickly. You also just can't produce enough firepower to burn down the space ships when they show up, much less do it while keeping the minions in check. That's not to say he's trivial in a 5-player game, but I think he's much easier. Since the most prevalent scaling effect is on the starting number of minions, once you burn those down, extra players are almost entirely upside.

I have much fear of Rook City. Not as much for the Tomb, although when the Tomb feels like being harder than the villain, it certainly has that capability

When I play in the Tomb, whether it's a cakewalk or a nightmare tends to revolve around Urshe.  Sometimes he gets rid of a lot of nasty stuff and only plays Shamise, and sometimes he discards the Idol of Anput and plays Trial of Fire, Swinging Blades and Swarm of Scarabs.

Overall I tend to find it somewhat less difficult than Atlantis and much less difficult than Rook City, but it's definitely up there.

When you say your playing with two players, do you mean two heroes? Just want to make sure you know it's not meant to be played that way - it's not balanced. (Two players should be played with two heroes each or something like that.) H should never be less than 3.

If you already know, it's all good - I just want to make sure!  Of course, you're welcome to home-rule anything you want, but I want to make sure you know that's what your doing. You don't want to compare home ruled games with games that are balanced with play testing and such.

See, and I've only lost a single game in Atlantis I think, although at least one other was extremely close (and against Ambuscade of all people, not even on Advanced; there was just one hit point left out of four heroes by the time he went down).  I know that the potential exists for Font or Pillars to play something horrible during the villain Start phase which instantly activates, but I haven't seen it so far.  And with that risk aside, the Environment is more of a nuisance than a threat; the Kraken usually helps us by picking off minions, and Phosphorescent Chamber is frequently quite helpful.  Toxic Seaweed is pretty bad, but seldom hard to get rid of, and Hallway Collapse is no big deal as a rule.  That leaves Mystical Defenses, which attack both teams equally, and Leaky Room, which is annoying but temporary, and at least once we've gotten a lot of mileage out of the extra lightning damage.  As for the Font and Pillars, while they definitely pose a threat, they also offer the heroes some significant benefits, and in almost all my games where this has come up, the swing has been hugely in our favor.

I must remember to try the Matriarch in Atlantis sometimes, and leave the Pillars out forever, just for the sheer hilarity of reshuffling and flipping her probably several times each round.  (Also, I've never had the Pillars AND the Tomb at the same time, so just for laughs I'll have to do that.  I'd want to pick a pretty safe villain if I was going to leave the Pillars up for a second Environment turn, but it'll be totally worth it.)

Phosphorescent Chamber is extremely nasty when combined with any Villain that forces discards, like The Dreamer, Ermine, Osiris, Citizen Dawn, or Iron Legacy, especially if you don't manage to draw any Environment destruction.

The discard is quite painful to be sure, but often the damage boost and/or the healing boost is worth it.  I've probably not fought too many of those matches though.

For me it's usually the Krakens that cause problems.  Against villains like Plague Rat or Iron Legacy, it can be really easy to get trapped as the lowest HP target.  They're pretty good at killing Citizens you wanted to keep, too.  All the Atlantis targets also have oodles of HP, so if you don't have environment destruction handy that's 30+ damage that could have gone to the villain.  For me at least the Krakens have a tendency to come out at especially inopportune times, like when we'd left one Kraken alive to chew on a villain target and a second Kraken comes out to chew on a hero.  Extra villain plays from Font/Pillar are always annoying, but fortunately I've only ever had Pillars bring out an EPE at the start of the villain turn once.

The Pillars are so bad because the villain gets so many extra card plays relative to the heroes, the longer you leave it out :P.

Krakens are annoying because they bash someone immediately after being played (well, after any other end-of-turn stuff in the same turn, I mean). At least with the Monorail you have a round in which to try and make it go away if it's gonna hit one of you ;).

We used the Pillars and the Informant to reshuffle the Chairman's deck on G+ one time. It made the rest of the game pretty easy because there were no thugs to pull the rest of the game. That the pillars allowed us to play extra cards just meant we were super set up for the next round when we got to pound on the underbosses

I had a game against Kismet in the ruins of Atlantis that ended up being pretty funny because the targets came out in the order kraken- mystic defences-kraken and as the talisman was the lowest target it meant that the environment was continually throwing it back and forth between kismet and the heroes, and it ended up that she was always on her side when she doesn't have the talisman because she'd not have it at the start of her turn, but the two damage she deals to it would take it back to her, but then the environment would give it back to the heroes on its turn and the cycle would repeat.

on the other hand I lost my first solo game there against normal baron blade of all people- mostly because I didn't realise the environment could attack villain targets, but those extra plays for blade seemed to bring out nothing but hastens :(

in terms of favourite villain, I've not played much but so far I like the dreamer (for both the story and the actual gameplay, as well as luck being a huge factor in whether you win or not) and Ambuscade for being a relatively quick and usually easy match for when I'm a bit tired. I also enjoy blade (both versions) as he's not go too much to keep track of when playing.

The damage boost and the healing boost affects Villain and Environment cards too, though. In general I find that global damage boosts are more dangerous to the Hero team than beneficial, and other global damage boosts don't cripple your hand.

We tend to try and get rid of the Phosphorescent Chambers rather than let them stay out for ages - while extra damage and healing is nice (as long as you're benefitting from it more than the villains, that is), it's the forced discard that we don't like. So if we can't get rid of it by nuking it with something then we just do the Start phase discard when the environment's turn comes round again.

5 - Kismet  When I first played Kismet, I thought she was perfect.  Despite my historical dislike of luck-based powers, her flavor was really strong, I was legitimately surprised by both the mechanical and personality change when she flipped (and they reinforce each other nicely), and the game was brutally difficult for my team.  I lost narrowly, and was in love.  Over time, this has faded slightly - good Ongoing destruction sadly neuters the violent trickster, reducing her to a mere gimmick - but as gimmicks go, she may be SotM's best, so she still has a place on my list.

3 - La Capitan  So much fun.  She's got personality, she (on Advanced) keeps constant pressure on your setup without making it just impossible to even try, even her minions are as much fun as some villains - and they just keep coming back for more!  Sure, nobody really knows what ties her to the rest of the game, or what exactly her flip side even means, but that's not the point.  The point, mateys, is that pirates rule!

2 - Citizen Dawn  As a long-time Magneto fan, it took a little while for me to adapt to Dawn's much more Jonestown spin on that theme.  But that's really the genius of Dawn, both in flavor and mechanics - she has just enough familiar elements to work, but always takes adjustment, whether that's changing your plans to deal with the different sets of Citizens (then scrapping your plans entirely when the Aurora eats everything you've worked for) or coming to terms with the unique threats posed by a truly mad dictator.

1 - Omnitron  There may not be much the evil robot does best.  Whether it's damage or defense extra plays or stuff destruction or flavor, someone always goes further.  But Omnitron is no slouch in any department, and while the result isn't exactly exciting, it may well be the most consistently strong and interesting game in SotM.  Give the bot some love.

@ Ironic:  Omnitron as one of the most consistent threats?  I really can't agree with you on that one.  Visionary just utterly destroys him almost single-handedly.  Being Suggested to play harmless cards over and over again makes him just sit there, Wrest the Mind neutralizes his Bomb, and she has no equipment for TechSing.  Even without her, however, I seldom find him a hard fight.  He's a little more likely to pull out a surprise win than Blade, but his Difficulty 1 status is well-deserved.  With the exception of Flechettes and maybe TechSing, he just never does enough damage to pose much of a threat without giving you the opportunity to defend yourself before the blow lands; just keep blasting either his EPEs or his Component-laden self, and he'll never pose more than a very mild threat.  If I wanted him to be mean, I'd make his Skittery Stabby Things damage all hero targets instead of just the highest, at least double the HP he regains from Repair Bots, and make all the bots significantly tougher, along with maybe having him start with something in the trash so he doesn't usually miss his first "rebuild a Drone or Component" action.  Heck, maybe make him rebuild several Drones at once; he's supposed to be a factory, let him mass-produce.  As it is, with the exception of a couple of really mean cards, he mostly just doesn't do enough to pose a serious threat.

Heheh, yes, playing Calvinball with the Talisman is fun.  My last game against Kizzy, I'd played on Advanced before, but I think it was the first time I noticed that her +1-3 damage on the flipside applies to the damage she deals the Talisman in order to get it away from the heroes.  So in a 3-player game, she blasts it for 3 each turn and a hero can maybe keep it for 3 turns after the first, but in a 5-some, she's dealing 5 damage to it, then dealing a hero 10 damage (Talisman starts at 7 HP in a hero's play area, Kismet deals 2+3 irreducible to it, leaving it at 2 HP, then she deals 9-2+3 damage).  So nobody can ever hold it for more than 2 total turns, and the highest-HP hero had better be Nightmist with her Amulet or visionary in a Cocoon, otherwise the team's collective HP will drop like a rock.

in terms of favourite villain, I've not played much but so far I like the dreamer (for both the story and the actual gameplay, as well as luck being a huge factor in whether you win or not)

Wait, that last part is a positive to you?  I like that luck provides great variety in the game, but Dreamer is pushing toward the point where you can play really well and still lose just due to bad luck, and I don't care for that fact.  I like for a villain to pose a very consistent threat which isn't too vulnerable to countermeasures (this is why I consider the Matriarch to be the weakest of the diff-4 villains; just one point of DR makes such a huge difference to how much harm she can inflict, and Savage Mana or Take Down or a few other cards can just utterly make her cry), but also isn't too likely to dial up into the realm of the utterly psychotic as a result of pure chance (if it's the result of you playing poorly, of course, that's different).  Dreamy has a lot of really spoilery cards like Dark Hero and the mass-damage one-shot; it sucks when she gets too many of those too soon, and I feel as though there was never even a possibility I might have won, which is not a happy feeling.  (At least with the Chairman, I go in expecting to lose; strangely I've actually beaten him more often than Dreamer, though possibly some of those victories were somewhat dishonest).

Eheh, you may have me there, Edwin - I almost never use Visionary, and have houseruled Infrared Eyepiece to be a One-Shot, since most villains fold like cheap lawn furniture when the Heroes can determine their plays.  Really, the only exceptions I can think of offhand are the Vengeful Five (because they have multiple decks to draw from), and The Chairman (who's vulnerable to Brain Burn instead).

Visionary is easily among my favorite heroes, but I only get her out for the absolute toughest games, as a rule.  Not unlike Legacy (though slightly cooler).

Visionary has the potential to be a tier-1 hero, but I don't think she actualizes that potential as well as Legacy (except maybe in Dark Visionary version, but I consider her "broken" rather than just good).  Legacy always has access to Galvanize, which is his most important thing except for Inspiring Presence (which is just a second Galvanize plus healing).  Visionary has quite a lot of most-important things, depending on what game you're in, but she's also clogged with several cards that are almost never exactly what you need - Mind Spike comes to mind, along with Mass Levitation (which, even if you're in a lot of danger from the Environment, is very seldom worth more as your one Power for the turn than Enlighten, let alone Foresight or Divergence).  Brain Burn would be fine as a singleton, though two copies are annoying; one copy of Mass Levitation would be preferred as well, and frankly I'd take the Mind Spikes out altogether, or maybe fuse Mind Spike and Cerebral Hemorrhage into one card that deals 3 damage to 3 targets, so that Cerebral wouldn't look so much like a strictly-worse Psychic Maelstrom (it's not, given the existence of cards like Sonic Mine and Propulsion System, but it looks like it is until you know the game pretty well).  Even TK Cocoon is only a good card in some matches.   All told, Visionary is inconsistent enough, even if she hoards all her Enlighten uses herself, that I don't think she counts as being much better than other heroes (all of whom can excel if they get the right cards in the right order, just as is true of her).  While Legacy unquestionably does; he doesn't need anything in particular to be worth his H slot in the vast majority of games, he can just stand there and make everyone else awesome, and probably add 10% to game win percentages even if he just plain never plays a card, or plays the top card of his deck every turn without a player actively controlling him (you'd have to have someone choose targets for his damaging one-shots, but for the most part he makes a pretty good robot).

The statistics don't reflect that at all. Sure, he's top of the win percentage list, but he isn't top of the G+ games. I put that down to the fact that Legacy's a very popular choice for beginner games, which are almost always easier villains, skewing his win percentage.

G+ games differ in that the vast majority of games are played with random characters. Legacy doesn't shine so much there, which says a lot. 

Dark Visionary? Also not top of the win percentage table, so hardly broken, and we use the hell out of her base power. Unless the heroes who are above her are also broken. 

I actually hold Legacy out of most games that aren't really tough.

His weakness is his draw and play are singles, he's got no pull and he has such a wide variety of cards.  Apart from that he's still beastly in all but a few games.

I think the stats get skewed a lot by player choice, but even randomizing can't account for everything.

Stats are what stats are, they have value but in the end all they do is regurgitate the information that is input.  Personal experience can give valuable insight, but breaking down their deck and really looking at what they do holds the most value to me.

That's what I tried to do in my rating system, but even that involved some personal "feel" of the character.

My B-i-L plays Legacy, but he gets bored playing him smartly, and ends up going berserker Legacy and going for doing damage, and while it is fun it is less effective than another gamer we have who isn't the cleverest, and just likes to play strong easy heroes that help the team win.  He's not creative or interesting in play style, but he makes a damn good Legacy.

I can't even imagine Ronway playing Legacy.

Playing the best card from hand every round. If I don't have a best play for a round, I will play a card that will most likely help me later. Then use the power that will be the most beneficial for the round.

That more or less describes my strategy too.  Not always the best card, sometimes I figure I should save it for a better moment (no sense using Fling Into Darkness to just deal 3 damage to an 80-HP villain, or for a Legacy-specific example, I might not want to bother playing Inspiring Presence if nobody needs the healing, although sometimes I might), but in general I make the correct play for the here and  now, and let the future take care of itself.  That's pretty much my entire life philosophy, actually....

Edwin, I think Ronway would always play Inspiring Presence since it is usually one of the best cards in hand, regardless of the healing. +1 damage is a lot more powerful than one heal for the team

That is a unique approach to Legacy.

How would you play someone like Wraith then?

Okay, so we're not quite the same.  Good to know; I'd hate to wake up one morning, look in the mirror and find myself resembling a Cursed Acolyte.

EDIT - It occurs to me, as I play this Spite vs. the Sentinels game I've been discussing in other posts, it seems likely that I'd have done better if I'd resigned myself to just building up until Spite flips, as is usually required.  But instead, I've fought tooth and nail to hurt him, and while I managed to get him as low as 55 HP, he regained 17 in just the single turn after acquiring his last Drug, and in retrospect I'd have been better off not even trying to fight him until he was about to flip.  So in essence, my general philosophy toward the game, that of attacking as fast and hard as possible, is pretty much exactly why I don't like Spite, as he severely punishes you for trying to do this (even in a non-Advanced game; in an Advanced one there's really no point in even trying, which is why I'm not playing Advanced now, but it turns out I might as well have).

Basically, I try to do the same for all heroes. Though some heroes, such as Wraith, I prioritize future more so than the current, depending on the urgency of the current. Such as against Dawn, if I have Infrared Eyepiece and Razor Ordinance in hand, both are great, but Eyepiece is usually better for long run to avoid Devastating Auroras. However if Wraith really needs to do 3 damage to kill one of the nastier Citizens, then I would go with Razor Ordinance.

Oh geez.

5. Citizen Dawn.  She just seems so angry.  I've never seen her smile.  And I love it.  She has the determination that goes with being bad for a cause she deems worthy.  Villain motivations mean something to me and I never liked the "He's bad just because."  I want them to have something they're fighting for.

4. Baron Blade.  Both the Vengeance version and his Lunar beam version.  His pure insanity is only made scarier by the fact he actually has the means to execute his craziness.  It reminds me of a quote from the Captain America movie between Tommy Lee Jones and the german scientist, Arnim Zola.

Dr. Arnim Zola: Only the world itself will satisfy him.

Col. Chester Phillips: Did you realize that's nuts, don't you?

Dr. Arnim Zola: The insanity of the plan is of no consequence.

Col. Chester Phillips: And why is that?

Dr. Arnim Zola: Because he can do it!

3. La Capitan.  A time traveling bucaneer with a rag-tag crew of time-warped miscrients ranging from ronins to vikings?  Need I say more?

2. The Chairman.  An overlord who let's his minions do the dirty work for him.  He's basically Earth's version of Voss; sitting idly behind the scenes while his plans are exectured by the scum beneath him.  It's cruel and it's raw, yet refined and professional.

1. Iron Legacy.  The story, the anger, the power.  It's all so dark and intense; I always loved the Superman story lines where the human race realized, "Wait a minute...if this guy ever turned evil, we would all be royally screwed."

Honorable Mention: Apostate.  Because sword.

No, I definitely didn't realize that! I read something (the box? boardgamegeek.com review? not sure)  that described the game as being for 2-5 players, and while each player playing multiple heroes is pretty intuitive, we've just been playing with one hero each since that's what the rulebook describes. 

Well, I'll give this to them – the game still plays really well with just two heroes. I'm sure the balance is off somewhat, but there's some variation in balance between 3, 4, and 5 heroes with each villain, too. I've played 4-5 5-player games and probably a couple dozen games with two heroes, and the two-player games never felt "wrong" compared to the 5-player games. The only thing that ever came up that felt actually broken was one of the ongoing cards in the Tomb of Anubis that required a hero to take H-2 damage to destroy it, which you can't do with only 2 heroes.

Well, with that caveat aside, I'll vote for my most and least favorite of the villains I've played against so far.

Best: Akash'Bhuta. She's not the most difficult villain, but the mix of flavor and mechanics is a grand slam. The interaction between the environment deck and the villain deck feels very appropriate for her, and her having high-hp minions that damage her when they die is both thematic and creates "feel good" moments. It's really satisfying to do big chunks of damage to her killing these elemental manifestations of limbs, and she's got enough hp that she can serve as a punching bag for a good long while.

Worst: Spite. Spite doesn't work for me on a flavor or mechanics level. First off, Spite is just creepy, and while I guess that works for something like a DC Vertigo kind of vibe, it doesn't really fit the feel of the rest of the game. I played him once and honestly quit before finishing because of the ick factor. Mechanically, being unable to do anything to the drugs once they come into play is also pretty unsatisfying. The safe house is a neat mechanical idea, but after Spite flipped the second Forced Entry of the game and killed every victim we'd saved to date, we stopped trying. Spite felt thematically unpleasant and mechanically oppressive, and produced the only genuine bad experience I'd had with SotM.

The Rook City villains tend to be pretty nasty - out of the four, I reckon Spite is actually the easiest, though Lilian can be a pushover if you get the right set-up, and Rat's not too bad either as long as you can outdamage him (he has no means to break your stuff but just pummels away at you with irreducible damage and then gets you to do the same to yourself/each other via Infections/Afflicted Frenzy). The Chairman was the hardest villain until Iron Legacy came along so...yeah.

All in all I think I find the Infernal Relics villains the most fun :).

In my book Chairman is still the hardest villain, Iron Legacy will pummel you faster but go down much easier

Nitpick at DanMarshall:  "Ronin" is both a singular and plural word.  (Also there's only one of each Crew.)

Yeah, Iron Legs is meaner than the Chairman, but that's actually a positive since it means the game takes less time to conclude (usually).  He's more easily "solved" overall, because he has fewer different things going on.  Against IL, you know you need ongoing removal, damage mitigation, and ideally some redirection; if you bring all those things, he's manageable.  Almost nothing can be done to make the Chairman more manageable; he just wrecks you half the time regardless of what you try to do about it.

Being a chronic advanced player I never rely on damage reduction against Iron Legacy, but I once held him down for a few turns by repeated Offensive Transmutation.

"Mitigation" includes "villain cannot deal damage" just as much as it does "villain deals less damage" or "you take less damage".  It can even include healing, though not even the Sentinels get enough healing to stay ahead of Iron Legs for long.

Damage reduction, damage immunity, deck manipulation, deck reshuffle, AoE, etc. Every villain can be made easy with the right team and the right cards.

Yeah, type-based protections (The Next Evolution, that Tempest card you would only ever use versus the Chairman, and the correct Plating) are huge in that match.  He's also just after Dawn on the list of "Villains who get wrecked by Brain Burn even though it kills Visionary to do it".  And, as with any mook master, area damage rocks his socks off.  Plus, no good answers to Hero stuff buildup.

That said, he is strong against a great many strategies and approaches, and I really should face him more - once I do, he could well crack my list.

Damage immunity is pretty much useful against anyone (and almost impossible to gain), and DR is also good against IL unless he's Advanced.  Deck manipulation is of very limited use against Chairman, given that his deck is 15 cards and gets depleted by the Operative.  AoE might or might not be a good idea depending on what your target priorities are; usually I'd rather blast the Operative as much as possible, and not kill relatively harmless Thugs like the Enforcers or possibly the Thieves, since they'll just make us take retaliation damage.  Brain Burn is a nice magic bullet against the Chairman, but I don't think even it will make him easy.

Tell me the "right team and the right cards" to make Chairman a cakewalk, I dare you.

I just told you, look at my post and use that brain of yours.

The only time I did him on Advanced (in Rook City) involved: Scholar, TLT, Greatest Legacy, Tempest, Argent Adept

Game went our way but it still had close calls. I recycled Proverbs and Axioms and played it many many times for team healing, we never got next evolution so we had to rely on damage reduction with scholar pretty much taking everything striking the highest HP and Legacy taking care of Chairman retaliations.

It's not a guarantee or anything, but:

Scholar (Flesh to Iron, and, uhm… really, that's about it)

Legacy (Next Evolution, Lead from the Front, maybe Legacy Ring)

Visionary (Brain Burn)

Tempest (Lightning Storm)

Scholar tanks against the Operative with FtI and his innate power until Legacy gets NE/LftF out, and then everyone is immune to melee and can kill the bad guys with impunity. Tempest kills everyone. Visionary shuffles the trash into villain deck as early as possible so that the Underbosses can stand around confused and if necessary keeps any Jailbreaks from being played.

With this team, it's still hard to beat the Chairman advanced, since you'll inevitably pull the Contract as the first underboss before you're set up and either die to the Hitmen over the next couple of turns or kill the Contract, flip the Chairman, and die because you're not set up. However, if you the Contract comes out late, Scholar can just tank the Operative while you keep destroying minions. Once Legacy is set up, it's all over.

Ronway…

Play nice.

Also, pillars of Hercules combined with the informant in the first round. In a 5 hero game he reshuffles in the first round which makes him pretty easy with a bit of AoE

Me and my brother took The Chairman apart with Haka, Parse, Chrono Ranger and The Argent Adept.

Counterpoint Bulwark + Té Moko pretty much negated the Operative's counterstrike ability, and Buffer Overflow prevented Prison Break from ruining our day. Critical Multiplier let Parse stack up big damage buffs to make it easy to take out The Chairman in very few hits, and we were playing in the Mobile Defence Platform, which Haka was able to negate with Endruing Intercession.

Hmmm… Haven't heard of that game, I will look into it. Does it play anything like Sentinels of the Multiverse?

How to wipe Chairman:

Legacy, Parse, Unity, Omnitron-X

Flip Chairman (kill the first underboss)

+2 from Legacy, Irreducible damage and +1 to Operative from Parse, Unity uses Hasty Augmentation on Omnitron-X who uses Defensive blast.

At +4 all targets take 20 irreducible damage, 24 to Operative.  Then Omni does it again for 12 to everyone, 16 to operative.   Thats a second round wipe of the organization, requires:

1 card from Legs, 3 from Parse (need big luck there), 1 from Unity and three from Omni, but his can be pulled.

Version 2:

Mr. Fixer, Parse/Legacy/Visionary/Adept, DW Expat, Tachyon/Wraith/Scholar

The idea is get Expat to +2 damage with Hairtrigger, which removes Hitman from being a threat and pretty much seals the game for the heroes.  Fixer is there to tank Operative with Hoist chain or Mantis, then someone who can give the +1 damage to Expat, and someone who can stop Chairman's retaliation damage for a few rounds.

Version 3:

Haka, Mr. Fixer then either Visionary and Omnitron-X or Tempest and Scholar.  This version you just get Ground Pound and cycle the heck out of it, with grease gun to fill gaps, or work just as well witht he second team.

Version 4:  Legacy with two powers, two next Evolutions and lead from the front, be immune to melee and Projectile.  Laugh.

That's four ways to completely shut down and crush the Organization.

I've beat Chairman over a dozen times, and only two used any of these.

My favorite is AZ and Visionary, TTE on Chairman, then just let AZ kill him, while Chairman's retaliation either heals AZ or causes a lot more damage to Chairman.  A second TTE on Operative makes the game a cake walk.

Unity, Wraith, Nightmist:  Stealthbot, Smoke Bombs, and Mistform (and highest Hp) = no damage until something gets blown up.

I'm more of a 3 hero team kind of guy. One of the ones;

Legacy, Tempest, and Expatriette.

Legacy with Fortitude, Lead From the Front, and Inspiring Presence.

Tempest with Gene-Bound Shackles and Electrical Storm. Grevious Hailstorm would be good as well, but the extre point isn't really needed.

Expatriette with Hair Trigger Reflexes and Assault Rifle.

It works on both advanced and non-advanced, only difference being is on advanced Legacy will take a bit of damage from Chairman's damage, but if every hero is setup like this, Chairman and Operative will be taking 11 damage a round, not including any one-shots or ammo getting played. And really, any gun would be fine for Expatriette.

That's only on Advanced, and I've only dared play advanced Chairman once, it's pretty suicidal and I haven't dared try again.

Irreducible damage and +1 to Operative from Parse

Er, how are you doing both those things on just one turn?

Unity uses Hasty Augmentation on Omnitron-X who uses Defensive blast.At +4 all targets take 20 irreducible damage, 24 to Operative.  Then Omni does it again for 12 to everyone, 16 to operative.   Thats a second round wipe of the organization

Omni needs two cards in play before his turn for that to work.  You'd have to get absurdly lucky with Timeshift.  I'm okay with a plan that assumes ideal luck drawing cards, since you only need like two cards to be among the four in your opening hand, plus the one you draw after your first turn.  But ideal luck with a single card flip is too much to ask for to make any kind of strategy around.

That's four ways to completely shut down and crush the Organization.

At least two of which rely on you having certain specific heroes.  The ones that seem mandatory so far are those that can mitigate damage - Legacy, Scholar, Wraith, maybe Tachyon though I don't think you mentioned her, Fixer and Expat can do a little of it, Haka could do it if you could manage to get him enough extra card draw and paired him with Argent or Tempest (Scholar only has two DDAs, so cycling Ground Pound forever with that is a long shot).  Can it be done without these heroes?  Can it be done by these heroes without ideal luck?  Do you have better than a 20% or so chance of pulling it off?  It's not strictly impossible, but if it requires this much Cloudcuckooland to succeed, it's sufficiently close to deserve the name.

Did you forget the point? If so, there was a statement that I made, saying every villain can be made easy with the right team and the right cards. That was followed by you asking what these teams and cards were for The Chairman. You have received an answer, yet you are not satisfied with it. Perhaps before asking questions, you ask yourself, do I really want to get an answer or am I just setting it up so I can complain about the statistics of it happening?

Play some games. A lot of games.

You know what's awesome?

That we have a whole project devoted to working out what heroes win what percentage of times, we can even narrow it down to heroes verses a particular villain. Why, with a click of a button I can see the very results that you want. If you poke around a bit further you can see the raw data so that you can see who else was on the team when a hero won against that villain, that way you don't need to rely on Ronway's suggestions.

With two turns to defensive blast that is two play phases before you defensive blast, so no luck on timeshift required.

Parse requires snap decision to pull it off, or an our of turn card play.  The time we did that Omnitron's first turn he timeshifted Parse, and got snap decision, so it was awesome.

Those examples are completely dominating Chairman to the point that he poses no legit threat to the heroes.

I've beaten him with all sorts of teams.  He doesn't give me as much trouble as dreamer.

I think he's better on advanced, his second side is meaner, but he does far less to you before you can kill him.  If you are at half health when he flips you are toast.  Advanced solves that for you.

But statistics are evil! And wrong! Evil and wrong!

And 73.4% of them are totally made up!

I thought it looked like you were saying O-X needed to Defensive Blast once off of Unity's Hasty Augmentation, then once more on his own turn.  O-X would need to play both Defensive Blast and a Plating card before that could happen, so he must have had two turns.  If Unity's turn is before his, this can't happen without the luck I alluded to; if her turn is after his, then your example was misleadingly worded.

Those examples are completely dominating Chairman to the point that he poses no legit threat to the heroes.

I would have said that was impossible.  What if he Prison Breaks?  No matter how good your setup is, other than Next Evo/Lead from the Front, I don't see how he can be completely neutralized.  And even then, Rook City is Mine might put out Environment threats which Lead from the Front doesn't stop.

If you are at half health when he flips you are toast.  Advanced solves that for you.

Well I can see that making sense, but usually I am at half health when he flips, even if I do manage to squeak out a narrow win.  I suppose I can try more Advanced games, though frankly I'm not wanting to deal with the whole "shuffling the Chairman" issue.

That information does not go into enough detail to be particularly useful.  It doesn't list what cards a hero drew during games when they won against the Chairman, or what order they were played, or any of that.  And if I went to the statistics and saw that, say, Parse had a 76% win rate against Chairman and I went and played three games against Chairman with her and lost more than one of them, I'd feel tremendously stupid for ever thinking that the statistics were telling me anything.  So I just proactively don't listen to them in the first place.  More detailed information is more useful to me, but ultimately Ronway's not wrong that I shifted the goalposts a bit; the bottom line is, Chairman is really hard, even with a team specifically built to beat him, you still need above-average luck to get a setup which can even prevent you from losing, let alone enable you to win.  And if you want to play any old hero instead of just certain heroes, or pursue strategies other than the most optimal ones, you'll do even less well.  The Chairman is NOT someone you play when your objective is to have fun, unless your definition of fun is tackling a nigh-impossible challenge and MAYBE succeeding, if you make only optimal choices AND have better-than-average luck.  That's really all I was getting at.

You are perhaps confusing me with Envisioner.  Natural mistake, he and I being such good friends and all.  But I joined this forum after he got himself banned, and I don't plan on following in his footsteps to such an extent.  I'm here to carry forward the good works he created; while we agree on a lot of issues, I'd like to think I've learned more tact and prudence than he could ever quite manage.

I enjoy fighting the chairman and I’ve never put together a team to beat him. I also have beaten him as often as I’ve lost. When you pull the win it feels great

We seem to do fine against the Chairman on G+ with our random heroes. *shrugs* I don't know that we employ any particular strategy or anything...

Yeah mostly we pull a Ronway and play the best cards we have at that time

Edit: for example giving Tempest 4 additional uses of localized hurricanes. Makes the operative go down fast

No one is agrueing against the fact that Chairman is really hard, he's rated a 4 in the rulebook for a reason. The only thing being stated is The Chairman has his weaknesses that can be exploited to give an easy victory. I've seen it happen many times. The example that Humble-Knight mentioned, we managed to incap Operative before Chairman even flipped, then I few rounds after that the Chairman was incapped as well. And if I remember correctly, most heroes were missing only a quarter to half their health. You want to know how we got this team? It was random, so there was no planning ahead of time to decide who we would use. We got a team and went with it. Sadly I can't recall the team exactly, but I know Tempest, Parse, and Unity were involved. That may have been the game with Greatest Legacy as well, not sure.

The thing that confusing me the most, is you even said Iron Legacy can be "solved" if you bring this, this, and that. So against Iron legacy it's perfectly fine to bring the optimal heroes and hope for a good draw? It's the exact same thing.

Oh no, I'm not confused at all. I was simply making a joke relating to a previous ridiculous "discussion" on the subject (which did indeed involve the pre-ban Envisioner) and the general misunderstanding of the general public about statistics, about which I've made many jokes to other people elsewhere.

It's one of my comedy routines (not dissimilar to the one about how every single hero needs many more search cards, or how much I really hate British people, or how SotM is the worst game I've ever played because there aren't even any dice) in which I gently mock those with whom I disagree by taking their arguments to extremes and exaggerating them. I thought I might remind people of my rants in the hope of amusing them.

I am confused as to why you'd think that was aimed at you though. 

Whoa, hold on there. Are you saying that all those times we have discussed the importance of every hero needing a search card for every card in the deck, you were merely joking? Dang, I really thought we were having some heart felt moments. You will see, you all will see! Search cards are the wave of the future! Soon there will be a hero where every card in their deck is a search card.

Ronway, that was the game with greatest legacy; I was playing him. I think we had one more but I can’t remember who. Until you reminded me I thought I was AA. Maybe Naturalist was the 5th?

Was it a five hero game? It's hard to remember, because we play so dang much! Just like I can't remember which heroes were in that Voss game where Naturalist was in human form the entire game. Hmm… I can't even remember who I was playing… Oh yes! Fanatic, first turn End of Days! Boom goes the minions and Forced Deployment!

Ronway, every moment I spend with you is a heart-felt one. You are so awesome and you're always right. I wish everyone could be more like you. 

See, I'm good at this joking thing. 

We totally could have a search-based hero. Let's call him Searchy. His base power would be Search: Search your deck, hand, or trash for any one card, and put it into play or into your hand. You may use this power again now. 

I think that was the one where I was playing CR. I think I did 56 damage in the last round

Yup that was right, matchstickman never transformed because he had to eat the guards over and over

EDIT: I just did the math again and I did 35 damage that round not 56

I saw most of that game, having joined the hangout just a few minutes after it started. It was awesome. 

And then I started the next game in croc form before I'd even taken a turn. 

I want to say Fanatic, Naturalist, Chrono-Ranger, Sentinels…and whoever David played. Horus Ra, maybe?

Yup thats right cuz I really didn’t want to be healed when we all stabilized at around the sentinels health and ra got to keep his staff

Prison Break can be mostly neutralised by Hairtrigger Reflexes, Grease Gun, Bee Bot, Ground Pound, Buffer Overflow, Caliginous Form, Synaptic Interruption and Amulet of the Elder Gods, because actually the really dangerous part of Prison Break is the Hired Gun and you only have to stop the Hired Gun.

Come to think of it, I left out Wrecking Uppercut, Fumbling Fool, and Parse's and Naturalist's cards that let them look at the top of a deck and discard a card.

I'm still unclear on what exactly you would characterize that "weakness" as.  "Lack of access to damage types other than Melee and Projectile" is about the best I can come up with, and there are a lot of villains in that boat, and not many heroes (pretty much just Legacy and maybe O-X) who can make that a significant problem.

The thing that confusing me the most, is you even said Iron Legacy can be "solved" if you bring this, this, and that. So against Iron legacy it's perfectly fine to bring the optimal heroes and hope for a good draw? It's the exact same thing.

Almost all heroes have the tools to stop IL, though.  The only heroes who I know are deeply disadvantaged against him are Unity and maybe the Sentinels, because of sensitivity to mass damage.  Heroes without Ongoing destruction will struggle, and heroes with no damage mitigation are unlikely to survive to the end of the game; a lot of heroes face an uphill battle, but few are completely helpless, with luck determining a lot of whether you have a chance, but not needing an incredible LOT of luck to succeed.  Overall, IL has a much bigger weak point than Chairman; heck, immunity to just melee (or to damage in general) removes about 90% of the threat he poses, but even without that, there are a lot of different ways to stop him, from stripping all his ongoings and repeatedly Throat Jabbing him while you setup, to redirecting his worst attacks at critical moments and getting him just low enough that the Environment will attack him, to having him luckily not have Superhuman Redirection and just one-shotting him to death before he flips.  He's still definitely tough, just because of how hard and how fast he hits, but if you can survive that initial onslaught he's not too bad - certainly more solvable than the Chairman, I think.

Uh…The Broker?  The Deputy?  Heck, even The Fence?  All of the thugs except maybe Enforcers and Thieves are absolutely backbreaking must-kill-instantly targets, which are produced by other backbreaking must-kill targets (not so much the Fence, he's more of a nuisance), and every time you kill either of these, the Operative stabs you, and then on her turn she searches up another must-kill target who brings back another must-kill target. 

Come to think of it, I left out Wrecking Uppercut, Fumbling Fool, and Parse's and Naturalist's cards that let them look at the top of a deck and discard a card.

Wrecking Uppercut and Fumbling Fool are no more likely to remove a Prison Break than they are to make it happen sooner.

Depends on the situation. I've been in games where I was using Infrared Eyepiece to control the Prison Breaks, but The Chairman's deck was getting depleted and basically the only cards left were Prison Breaks. Fumbling Fool would have been perfect then.

I don’t know why but I think Kismet is my least favorite villain. I think its because the first time I fought her I got beat down by jinxes with a team without good ongoing destruction and there were too many effects to track to want to keep playing. I wad solo so all the effects were giving me a headache. I also never know if it’s appropriate to flip her

If you are short on Ongoing destruction, you will need to keep her on her flip side as you start playing ping pong with the charm, she just gets too many damage buffs and its not worth it. When her front side gets out of control damage wise, you should flip her.

Interesting - that's almost the exact scenario which made me love her - and I only liked her less after I came in with a good anti-Ongoing team.

No they aren't. Their Thugs need to be trimmed down most of the time, but you won't lose a game just because an Underboss other than The Contract hangs around for a turn longer than you want them to. The Operative's retaliatory strike can in most Environments be dealt with through damage reduction. A couple of guys with 1DR, or one guy with 2DR, make her a lot less scary.

Informants make it impossible to play a card without accelerating the Chairman's already deadly deck, which really doesn't have ANY "blank" cards other than Perfect Human Specimens, and only that if you're not even trying to kill the main villains.  Since many heroes CAN'T kill the Informant without playing a card, and thus have to skip their turn if she's out, and the Broker also plays a card if she survives, I'd rate her and her minions as being more dangerous than the Hired Guns (except in Advanced games, I suppose).  The Deputy is also a wrecking ball because of the protection he grants to everything you need to kill in order to make progress toward winning.

The Operative's retaliatory strike can in most Environments be dealt with through damage reduction. A couple of guys with 1DR, or one guy with 2DR, make her a lot less scary.

Once again, this implies that if your team isn't carefully selected to contain the right heroes, you're screwed.  Not everyone has DR even some of the time, and only a few characters can get it reliably.

One card for killing the informant isn't too bad.  It can't cause too much trouble for you outside of the villain turn, a prison break on the first hero in (H)=4 is actually kind of awesome as it gives you a while to prepare before they act.

The dangerous things about the Chairman are the Hitman and Chairman's retaliation.  If you can deal with those two the fight becomes prety average in difficulty.

Much like Truth and Devastating Aurora for Dawn.

It doesn't make it a cake walk, but your win chance goes up a ton if you can handle those threats.

You can also turn the Informant against the Chairman pretty easily. We had Fixer with Grease Gun going last, so we burned cards through the informant and got the contract out first round, once we took him out the Chairman flipped, and we went to town on him with Grease gun in play.

My favorite way to deal with Chairman advanced is Twist the Ether on Chairman and AZ sitting there healing like a boss.  We ended up with Smoke Bombs in play as well, and switching fire and cold to keep AZ highest HP and nuking everything.

No way. Underbosses and Prison Breaks played on a Hero turn are usually good for the Heroes, since they allow you to kill them without them getting to do anything. Undivided Attention only hits one or two Heroes, Hired Gun hits everyone, and for more total damage than Undivided Attention. Rook City is Mine! depends on the Environment. Many Environment cards have little effect when played out of turn, or are even beneficial instead of dangerous (e.g. Pervasive Red Dust). (It can admittedly get very rough in Megalopolis or Rook City).

Besides, if you have one Hero on your team who has or can reliably get a damaging base power or, even better, Start of Turn damage, you can always seat them first.

He's not a wrecking ball. He's a complication, and honestly the least worrying Underboss, since at worst all he does is give the Chairman 14 more hit points.

Who doesn't have DR even some of the time? I count Absolute Zero, Fanatic*, Ra, Tachyon, Expatriette, Nightmist, Unity, Chrono-Ranger, Parse and Setback. You're not going to tell me most of them have bad matchups against The Chairman, are you? I guess Tachyon might have trouble landing her Hypersonic Assaults, depending on who her teammates are. But Synaptic Interruption is a case-iron defence against the Hired Gun, so I have trouble saying she's got a bad matchup. Ra and Expatriette have very solid damage and retaliation or pretaliation that can take out the Hired Gun. Nightmist has the Amulet, Unity has tons of great stuff against the Chairman, Parse can entirely negate all that damage reduction you're so worried about and stop Prison Break cold with Buffer Overflow (among the many other ways she can wreck the Chairman), and Chrono Ranger is built for taking out characters like the Operative. Oh, and Setback has Wrong Time and Place, so more redirection there.

That leaves Fanatic and Absolute Zero, neither of whom exactly has a bad matchup against The Chairman, even if I don't think any of their tech is particularly dangerous to The Chairman (barring Visionary shenanigans).

• Although when H=3…

#5: Team Ambuscade
I liked his personality, and I love the difficulty upgrade. Probably my favorite team villain.

#4: Skinwalker Gloomweaver
Gloomweaver? Difficult? WHAT?! It’s a way more fun way to fight gloomy. It feels like how Gloomweaver was meant to be fought.

#3: A tie! Our contestants: Apostate and Infinitor. I like them both because of the insane combos. However, runes, statue, orb is actually painful. So, winner: Infinitor!

#2: Deadline
Wow, this fight is tense. Deadline will eat the whole environment, or almost. This game is always close. DL’s only problem-his HP. If he had 90-95, it would be insane.

#1: Plague Rat! Oh wow, this fight. It’s so much fun! This is a perfect villain. Too easy? Play ultimate. Too difficult? Jim. It’s an intense battle to the finish, no matter what. And that gimmick is amazing.

My top 5 villains:

1. The Chairman - Love the mob boss theme and the thrill of facing organized crime in the city.
2. Grand Warlord Voss - Alien conqueror leading an invasion adds a fantastic sci-fi element, and his advanced mode is a real challenge.
3. Akash’Bhuta - Unique and visually stunning embodiment of nature’s wrath. The battle feels like a struggle against the forces of the earth.
4. Baron Blade - Quintessential mad scientist with a doomsday device provides a classic superhero comic book vibe. His escalating plots and countdowns make for intense gameplay.
5. Iron Legacy - Evil version of the game’s flagship hero adds a compelling twist. His ruthless and powerful nature makes him a formidable opponent.