Not a snappy title, but it should make the potential spoilerificness of the thread obvious. Just in case it isn't enough though
Spoilers of Villains cards Ahead. Also, Massive Wall of Text
First off, let's talk oversized cards.
They are absolutely gorgeous. The artwork is superb and a few of them are, IMO, far superior in giving the feel of the villain than the original art. Bravo to Adam.
However, while ogling the art I noticed a few things, as I tend to do.
Base omnitron while in his factory form is shown expelling a lot of toxic green goo. I don't know if this ends up meaning anything, but It was not something I expected to see. I makes me wonder how environmentall unfriendly omnitron was.
Operative's flip doesn't give any clues to where those arrows came from, but showing the sign of Zhu Long so prominently gets me wondering. After all, after her near death she was sent to Zhu Long, and we still don't know how he and Chairman are connected.
Apostates flip makes the blue scars he had more interesting. They are spouting blue flame, which means it is energy leaking from within him. It is also breaking up the ground at his feet and makes me wonder about his title as a "corrupter"
I can't remember if this was ever brought up before, but La Capitan's flip showing her split across time made me realize something. If I am not mistaken she has Atum's Gauntlet in one picture and the Starshield Necklace in another. Looking at the Starshield pic, she looks more like a ragged pirate, and I wonder if she appeared in Maine. The flavor text of the Starshield says it is a charm against evil from dreams. That, combined with all the other references, sounds like cthulu and if memory serves me, part of Lovecraft's universe involved pirates in Maine running into the "Deep Ones" which were monster fish people back in 1800's. She could have been there.
Here's a big one. Tormented Ally Infinitor. First of all, sounds like an awesome concept for him, but his flip side suddenly struck me with a few facts. His cards are manisfestations, not illusions or distortions or anything else. Something is manifesting through him, and his flip is "Overcome by Manisfestations" and shows a rather large sort of demonic horned being. At first I thought this might be our first visual of the Cosmic Entity, but looking over Infinitor's backstory he did supposedly draw from some being's power. I think this thing is the source of Infinitor's strength and insanity, but what it actually is I have no idea.
Looking toward the variants.
Chrono-Ranger's Best of Times promo, incapped, I think this is clearly the origin of Renegade (http://greaterthangames.com/content/for-profit-characters). My question is whose giant blast of green death is it that ripped him apart like that. I can't think of anyone except Gloomweaver who generally uses green blasts... oh, except Infinitor, that's a good potential canidate.
Adamant Writhe's incap side shows the "black wire being" again, but clearly seperated from Writhe. What is more interesting to me though is where thye are at. It looks to be the same place where Medico's incap is, note the giant blue-black vortex, it also looks the exact same as the scene we see in Deadline's Pandemonium Key and potentially where Chrono-Ranger ended up before Old La Capitan finds him. I'm wondering if this is one of the final arena's of the game.
Chokepoint had a few interesting bits.
Stripped Resources: It looks like Unity repaired O-X while they were fighitng Chokepoint
Material Upheaval: Looks like Chokepoint breaks into Fort Adamant
Empowered Self-Repair: She's talking to Swift bot, saying " Pushed into limbed form, but that is not your truth" gives some insight into Choke's mentality
Harvest the mighty: She's ripping apart the bunker suit. Considering she focuses on metal that would explain why bunker ends up fighting in the synth and tree suit.
Newfound Power: This looks like her recoery/transformation from Deadline's tool. she says, "I don't understand. You're so loud! So Bright!". I'm beginning to suspect that the blue stone is one of the Oblivion Shards, that would explain why it so drastically changed her capabilites.
A tangent of that led me back to the Dreamer, I'm thinking the green crystal the dreamer is often seen with is also an Oblivion shard. I think we've suspected that since we saw Man-grove's transformation in Tactics, but I think there may be more to it. The Visionary's mother was killed by the drugs that Project Cocoon used to give Visionary her powers. However, The Dreamer's mother is still perfectly healthy from everything we can see. Visionary had powers by two months, Dreamer got them by age six years. Even if we accept Vanessa Long will develop powers regardless of anything else, that is too much of a difference. What if contact with the crystal was the source of her power? What if that is what awakened her. And if we look, she has the crystal with the stuffed monkey. The Treacherous ape has the crystal, and the alternate version of dreamer we see in La Capitan's deck is accompanied by a large orange monkey, with a glowing gen in it's forhead. That is too much for coincendences.
Celestial Tribunal.
First off, we see The Matriarch being tried by the Tribunal, and the Dark Watch team is called in to testify in her case. I'm willing to bet this trial is the turning point that leads the Matriarch to become Pinion.
Looks like Heartbreaker killed Dr. Tremata. Also a guy with glasses and a faceless man, neither of whom I can identify. Looking at Heartbreaker's card later on (Miss info's deck) he's a nemesis of the entire Dark Watch team, and with the body's seen at the Tribunal I get the feeling he is a hired hitman, an assassin who Dark Watch has been hunting for sometime. I'm still wondering if he is actually Tony Taurus, but I don't think we'll learn that information until For Profit comes out.
The Star Field in the background of the Tribunal looks very similiar to me to the star fields mentioned above with Adamant and the Pandemonium key. If they are, that places it according to the Tribunal's card, at the edge of the Solar System.
Paragon of Sentience makes mention of the "Zenith of Humanity" while showing a picture of scholar and Guise fighting Aeon Men. That could mean scholar, which makes a lot of sense I think, or guise, which makes less immediate sense but then sort of makes sense considering all Guise does seems to be ripping off pop references while being a hero. I'll also come back to this card later.
Court of Blood, oh man, I get the feeling I'm going to love to hate this environment.
One really cool but subtle thing is that the Blood Countess is shown wearing cross-shaped earrings in Infecting an Heir, which has some important implications for the Sentinels universe. If this matches other fantasy portrayals I've seen it means that the objects of worship themselves hold no special power. It is either faith or specific relics that are anathema to the undead, if they would work at all. Even then I don't think it would be shown to be a terribly effective means of defending yourself, after all Fanatic still has to rely on her physical sword and armor to protect her, as shown on her Prime Wardens incap (thinking we've confirmed that takes place at the Court of Blood). Even with that though, the type of dark power presented does affect Fanatic as shown in the Unhallowed Halls flavor text. Which by the way, that card makes the Court environment a heck of a lot scarier and really shuts down a few of Fanatic's and Scholar's main strategies.
Actually, her complete aversion to the Court's dark power, and Apostate using Blood Magic to summon his ancient relics might mean there is a connection between the two angelic beings and the vampires. With blood magic being a factor... hmmm. Could we also connect Bugbear and Atlantis' Phosphoresent Chamber back to this? Perhaps some ancient magical civilization that led to beings like the Vampires thru special rituals?
Madame Mittermeier's Circus.
We've got a couple of villains making an appearance here. Glamor shows up with NAturalist captured, Cueball shows up fighting Guise, we do not though get the Madame herself. I doubt it is Glamor, though I do think Glamor knows who the Madame is.
Maze of Mirrors in the Circus is the source of Setback and Tachyon's encounters with Glamor.It also shows Wraith a few different versions of herself. Not sure if we're talking more alternate realities or simply stage magic but Spite Wraith and Ghoul Wraith are both fairly terrifying looking.
Shooting Gallery is a bit of fin for side characters. It looks like we have Tachyon's wife Dana (which if Glamor is closely associated with the circus explains the nemesis icon between the two). I think the General in the middle is General Armstrong who ran Fort Adamant while Bunker was there. The third person is either Mrs. or Miss Parsons I think. My original guess was Mrs. Parsons, it fit the theme of non-super relatives and family and the cuffs looked too flimsy to hold Pauline, but then I think we see Pauline in You won't believe your eyes with "Baron Blade" (a fake, either illusion or possibly the counterfiet Blade from Biomancer). Could have the real Mrs. Parson's in danger and illusions of Pauline as "Ivanna" I guess, but all in all, I don't think it was a fun day for LEgacy or whichever villain he eventually caught up to who threatened his family.
Temple of Zhu Long kind of disappointed me for huge story secrets. Maybe I just missed them, but there was nothing big and obvious.
There is something though I think. Mysterious Ceremonies shows two women with scars over their eyes, it looks like a ritualistic blinding. The Operative also has symbolic blinding thru the red paint and later the dragon tatoo. Fixer is blind, and we've never seen his eyes. Fixer was also Zhu Long's nemesis long before Dark Watch Fixer. What if Fixer has a longer history with the Dragon, from back before he was Black Fist even, after all, someone needed to teach him martial arts.
Okay, whew. I'm going to post this massive post, then post two hold in spots to fill ou tomorrow because it is late and I still have 10 decks and a few meta thoughts to go through. Luckily, I'm mostly using some sheets I paper I jotted notes on while I was first going thru the cards.