Wrath of the Cosmos--What Could the New Mechanics Be?

Quick, before we're silenced by playtesting PDFs! Let's speculate about Sky-Scraper and Captain Cosmic and how they dance!

When I first heard the name Sky-Scraper, and saw that her hero symbol indicates a size-changing ability, my first thought was something along the lines of "size cards". Essentially, my idea is that she will have a handful of cards that dictate her size, whether it be growing or shrinking. Then, her other cards would have certain effects, saying "If you are at X size, you may _______." Her power would involve searching her deck for different size cards.

^Problems with this theory: this mechanic would just make her the same as Naturalist, so I quickly dismissed it. Moved on to:

Size cards that affect her damage reduction/dealt. Making Sky bigger? She does/receives more damage. Making her smaller? Does/receives less damage.

^Problems with this theory: too simple a mechanic, and would make her a level 1 hero, and I think GTG is going for at least level 2 heroes with the regular expansions. At least I hope so--I really appreciate heroes with unique mechanics.

So I shot down both of my own theories about Sky.

Theories on Cap. Cosmic: None whatsoever.

What do you think, folks? Ideas?

Sky-Scraper: Size is indicated by the size of the player's hand. The more cards in hand, the bigger she is. And vice versa.

Captain Cosmic: A hero that utilises the environment deck, much like many villains do.

LOVE this idea. Makes total sense. Good thoughts. Especially since hand size has never been a mechanic factor in a hero deck before.

Right?

What I want to know is what the new Environments will be.  I'm hoping for a Thorathian Homeworld.

My running theory on Captain Cosmic, since long before we knew his (awful) name, is that he has the powers of Firestorm with the narrative role of Green Lantern.  He joins the Prime Wardens because they're essentially protecting the Earth the way he's always protected the Universe, and presumably he was from the Earth in the first place, having been carried off into space to become a space cop (the opposite of Tempest and possibly Sky-Scraper, if she is indeed a Thorathian and not a "gene-spliced" Earther).

Perhaps the other Environment will be the headquarters of the space cops.  And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if FILTER is planning to destroy it, 'cause we don't need no illegal aliens in our galaxy.

This is going by how Vengeance Nemesis interact with their nemesis.

 I would say Captain Cosmic will deal lots of Energy damage. Also I suspect he may be a self damager, as Empyreon is seen hiting himself. Which gets me super stoked, as self-damagers are the bestest!!!

Sky-Scrapper is quite interesting, as Tantrum destroys a lot of Environment cards, and deals damage when there are none in play. So I suspect that Sky-Scrapper will effect the environment a lot. Not sure how exactly, perhaps she has a card similar to Fright Train, where she can deal damage based on the HP of a environment target in play. Perhaps she causes more environment cards to be played, and gets bonuses for doing so?

Though I have to leave for a while, I'll say this: I no longer think Sky has any ability to get smaller than her default size. I dismissed my initial theories even more after I remembered there is no indication that she can shrink. So I think she can only grow in size.

The Incredible Shrinking Dan is a mini-expansion.

By that logic there is no indication that she can grow, only that she is a particular size when we see her. Perhaps Gigantism is more pronounced in Thorathians?

We have just the one picture of her, yes?

And the nemesis icon.

Ah! I forgotten the icon, that does indeed show something changing in size.

The icon looks like the cover for an Animorphs book

A few ideas on Skyscraper:

1.  Size is a resource, like cards in hand or tokens or HP, as you get more she gets bigger and she changes, then you expend her size to do certain things, like you hit really hard and she shrinks a bit.

Problem is if cards aren't in play where is the text that gives her any passive/static bonuses for being big?  if there aren't any, then what is the point to this style of mechanic, if you biuld up your hand and expend it, where is the feel for size change coming from?

2.  Cards in play:  this makes more sense, as the cards in play can gain effects the more of them there are.  I haven't played Setback and his mechanic, but is there a setup-style card that tells you what to do, or does it all happen organically as you play cards?  This mechanic would have you build her up to be bbigger and better, building like an AZ to be a Giant in battle, only with the visual of size increasing.

Problem with this mechanic is ongoing wipes would just cause her to shrink.

3.  Targets:  She grows by putting cards with HP in play, as she takes damage she shrinks.  The cards would also have effects making her better and stronger.

As for Captain Cosmos, I have no clue, he's got to have some really cool stuff about him to get away with that name.

Does anyone other than myself actually enjoy the name Captain Cosmic?

I do. I don't see any issue with it. 

I really enjoy it. It screams comics to me. There's nothing about him I dislike yet.

I'm sure there are some folks out there who do, but I haven't met any of them. 

CC is a pretty decent name, though.  Or maybe we can call him something unrelated like Shazoom?

I like it, but when you throw down Captain Cosmos, you aren't throwing down a minor character.

I am decidedly meh about the name Captain Cosmic. I don't hate it, I don't love it. 

Maybe, Shazbot?

This sounds awesome. Of course, being big or small lets her specialize in different things, i.e. bigger = higher damage, smaller = higher utility.

I love the name Captain Cosmic and read/own all of the Animorphs books. Also Sky-Scraper’s Nemesis symbol is going to be INCREDIBLY hard to do in Perler beads. I’ve already done Captain Cosmic and Guise’s, but I haven’t ironed/posted them up yet because of my craft conundrum.

To stay on topic: I don’t think Sky-Scraper’s mechanics will have anything to do with Perler beads, the Animorphs books, or Captain Cosmic’s name.

Yeah... sky-scraper's nemesis symbol was VERY hard to even draw for the wiki. Not a whole lot of detail shown on the tiny little symbol on Tantrum's card. Will probably need to be fixed once her character is released and there's a better picture for it. 

As far as her mechanic, I really like the idea of her size being represented by her hand size. Maybe she will have one shots that deal damage based on the number of cards in her hand, ongoings that provide DR based on her the number of cards in hand (maybe divided by two).  Maybe take it even to the point that if she has no cards in hand she is incapped. 

Its a mechanic that shouldn't be TOO hard to implement and it's something we haven't seen yet. 

Maybe her 'Size' is her HP. As she has more HP she does more damage, her cards have riders based on the amount of HP one has. A she looses HP, she gets less effective - less damage, less riders. She'll probably have to have some sort of heal mechanic to get back to certain riders if that was the case

This stops her from simply having form/mode type cards (Naturalist/Bunker) or from having a 'size pool' (Setback) 

Captain Cosmic ( i don't mind the name) will probably be a damager type, im betting complexity 2 type damage, with some interesting mechanics based on possibly the environment.

This seems unlikely to me - She'll only become less powerful as the battle continues and the villians beat on you.  That seems unfun.  Although maybe if she had other riders that start to trigger below certain healths - she's really small, so she can't be hit - stuff like that.

"HAhahahahahHAHHAAAAH!"  --Citizen Dawn

"Indeed." -- Miss Information

"Yes, quite." -- Iron Legacy

"Sorry, bro." -- Ruins of Atlantis

I don't know... I think with some cool draw abilities and tempting card combo sets such a mechanic could make for an interesting balancing act between holdings your cards to be safe and playing your powerful combos but risking death by these discarding villains/environments. 

Wrath of the Cosmos: where your hand floats in the air for you. Oooh spaaaaaace~

The only problem with hand size being her size is that the only way that hand size will show up mechanically is with ongoing cards, Equipment or discards.

If she is Devastating Aurora'd no matter how big her hand size it wouldn't represent anything meaningful mechanic-wise, other than if her base power uses discards to modify its result, but then you have a mechanic that strengthens the character if you do nothing, and weakens her each time you act.  That doesn't seem like something they would do.

It could show via one-shots that have effects based on her hand size so she'd avoid the ongoing destruction issues. Her base power could be a draw ability of some sort to keep her fueled. Her growing weaker by playing cards could represent the energy she uses up to perform the card action, leaving her weaker. Maybe her growth isn't all that stable to begin with. 

Don't really have any idea how her deck actually works, just saying that such a mechanic could work and would be an interesting new way to deal with a hero. 

I agree, I just don't think it would convey that the hero was changing size very well.

Trying to keep it simple, she could just have "Enbiggen" cards in her deck which have a stacking effect when played, i.e. "increase damage dealt by Sky-Scraper by 1 for every 2 Enbiggen cards in play".  To avoid Ongoing destruction (which I'm not sure is necessary), they could just call them "size" cards instead of "ongoings" and the rules for that expansion could just say "size cards act as ongoing cards in all ways but aren't considered ongoing cards".

It could be fun to build her up to truly enormous proportions throughout a fight.

Hmmm.

It could be a variation on the burst mechanic, the more cards you have in the trash the bigger Sky-Scraper is... but Tachyon has a lot of additional card plays and unless Sky has a way of discarding and drawing replacement cards it would be a net loss.. and I don't think >G would reuse a mechanic like that.

She'll be a simple complexity one melee smasher, except all her cards will be oversized.

I think she will be a tank.

She can protect allies just by being in the way of the villains attacks.

I think she'll become more powerful based on how many environment cards there are. It makes sense -- the more ROOM there is, the bigger she can be. Her power could be to put the top card of the environment deck into play, face down.

So the more copies of Cramped Quarters you can get out the bigger she is?

Sky can tend to make things a bit uncomfortable.

I don't know if Sky-Scraper will have a variable size. I would see her both having the ability to redirect damage done to heroes to herself, and more importantly, ways to handle the environment, maybe by destroying environment cards to deal big damage, for instance. Throwing a T-rex at your opponents is always fun. Something like "destroy an environment target, do damage equals its hit points to another target."

Going off of Tantrum's interaction with the environment, I feel confident that Sky will work with the environment. I don;t know if it will be the number of cards out per say, but definetly think she will have an important interaction.

This seems like a bit of a stretch to me.  Ra "interacts with the environment" on two of his cards, but that's hardly very definitional of his character.  And I don't see any real reason why a Growing Girl would be anything other than a Difficulty 1 tanking beatstick, or maybe a Diff 2 with a "growth" mechanic along the lines of Tachyon's Bursts or a cumulative sort of Modes/Forms/Styles.

Its a good thing you aren't designing games then. Just because you can't see how it will interact, doesn't mean there isnt a way.

'Deal damage equal to the number of cards in the Environment discard pile. Discard the top card of the environment'

'Discard the top card of the environment to do 2 damage to one villain target'

'Whenever an environment Target enters play, heal for X, where X is  equal to the environment target's HP"

And thats just off the top of my head.

All that text fits on Tantrum's card, along with a "If Sky-Scraper is in the game" line?  Must be pretty small text.

Oh, you're just speculating on possible abilities?  No, I didn't mean I couldn't think of any way such abilities could be worded mechanically; I meant they would make little if any sense as representing the abilities of a growing character.  The last one is Akash'Bhuta's "Allies of the Earth", and it makes sense in the context of a mistress of nature ruling over local wildlife, but for a character who (presumably) just gets bigger and smaller, what possible connection could there be there?  And the others are just kind of pointless; the second interacts with the environment for absolutely no reason other than to do so, and possibly to combo with the first.  And if the first is meant to represent a "growing" mechanic, it strikes me as a fairly awkward way of doing it.

I am in fact a game designer, just not a professional one.  And it's not like there's an institute which accredits people as such professionals; the only reason I can't work for FFG or AEG is that the field is overly-saturated with wannabes and they're virtually never hiring for new people.  I totally have all the necessary "chops", apart from practical experience, and nobody has that when they first get into the field.

If we looked at the mini-nemeses in the Vengeance decks and their interactions with their respective heroes then we wouldn't get a complete understanding of their decks.  Sure, Argent Adept uses his Instruments a lot, but it's only part of his mechanic.  Having heroes be immune to hero damage with Fanatic affects a few of her cards, but she doesn't cause other heroes to deal damage to each other.  The environment may very well be an aspect of Sky-Scraper's deck, but her deck could feature only a few cards with that feature or it could be an entire theme of the deck as a whole.  I think we're still safe speculating that environment interaction it is a factor, but not the factor in her deck design.

Gotta say, though:  it would be really cool if she had a Power that read something like:  Destroy an Environment Target.  Deal another target projectile damage equal to the HP of the Environment target when you destroyed it.

Just the idea of Sky-Scraper picking up a T-Rex and throwing it at one of Voss's ships makes me incredibly happy!

Sky-scraper - size equal to inverse of hand size

Captain Cosmic - ability related to number of non-hero targets in play

Other ideas that I would like to see:

- a villain that punishes the heroes for having a large hand size

- a gestalt type hero/villain similar to Devastator from Transformers

- an super adaptoid type villain where the villain has all the abilities of a team/group of heroes

- a super-intelligent ape villain

- a super scientist hero (like Mr Fantastic, Tachyon isn't on his level I don't believe)

- a parasite/draining type villain that steals the powers of a hero

I would be just as happy if this never occurs.  At least.

• a super-intelligent ape villain

This probably already exists in the form of Treacherous Ape (his card represents an imaginary projection of him, but Tachyon recognizes him as if they've met before, so presumably there was a real one in her past which Dreamy's mind copied for one of her nightmare-creatures).  We can't be sure how closely he resembles Gorilla Grodd, but for legal and originality reasons that's probably for the best.

• a super scientist hero (like Mr Fantastic, Tachyon isn't on his level I don't believe)

Well, and, I believe you're dead wrong on that.  Also there's Writhe, who is a very direct Mr. Fantastic analogue.

• an super adaptoid type villain where the villain has all the abilities of a team/group of heroes

• a parasite/draining type villain that steals the powers of a hero

Either of these would be mechanically nightmarish to accomplish, given how loosely this game defines "powers"…Tachyon has the "power" of super speed, represented by playing lots of cards, but has no Power: effects in her deck representing this (and one which very definitely does not), with the very arguable exception of her base power (the name suggests speed, but hardly exemplifies it).  Given that many characters have no "powers" at all, but just lots of technology (Bunker, Expatriette, Chrono-Ranger, and to a limited extent Unity and Absolute Zero), and that several characters's powers are somewhat loosely defined (Legacy has the superhuman powers of flight and indestructibility, but also a degree of charisma and leadership skill which is only arguably paranormal, some of it probably being derived simply from his personality), I don't think this could be accomplished in game terms to any real degree of effect.  They might make a character who has this as their backstory, but the result would just play like any self-contained villain, having been designed to resemble all the heroes to some limited extent, much as Iron Legacy is designed to resemble his original.

I would like to see a crazy inventor type hero that combines his cards to make stuff that has a chance of failing.

I think it would be cool if they implemented “evil freedom five” either in a vengence or ennead style deck. I think it would be awesome to have the freedom five vs an evil freedom five

Bizzaro Legacy- Reduce all damage dealt by villain targets by 1.

Bizzaro Bunker- Take the top card of your deck and throw it out the window.

Bizarro Tachyon- Deal one target x damage where x is the number of cards she hasn't played, every turn she doesn't play a card.

Bizzaro Wraith- Increase the next damage dealt to Bizzaro Wraith by 2 until the start of Bizzaro Wraith's turn.

Bizzaro Absolute Zero- Bizzaro Absolute Zero is chipper and care free and is opposed to fighting. He just waits off to the side for the fight to be over before interacting with the Freedom Five.

Edit: I liked Phantaskippy's idea so much, I decided to pretend it was my own.

Bizarro tachyon would deal damage based on the cards she hasn't played, every time she doesn't play a card.

Bizzarro Nielzabub:  Has ideas that are totally his originally, just after someone else thinks they had the thought first.

I'm not a playtester and I have no real foreknowledge of what may come in Wrath of the Cosmos, but here are my totally premature bold predictions:

Heroes:

We'll get Sky-Scraper and Captain Cosmic as our two heroes, with Guise relegated the following expansion (or perhaps a mini-expansion).  

Sky-Scraper's deck will revolve around hand-size as is the case here.  She won't have a damaging power; rather, her base power will be something like Draw two cards.  She'll likely have another power in her deck which gives her a consistently damaging power.  Most of her damage will revolve around one-shots, possibly with a rider that makes her discard cards (which would keep her size in check).  A possible one-shot for her might be something like Deal one target X damage, where X equals half the number of cards in your hand.  Discard 1 card.  Another might deal damage to all non-hero targets (I picture Giganta in the final episode of Justice League Unlimited, sweeping parademons off of the Eiffel Tower), but with a higher discard cost.  I still do like the idea of her being able to do a sort of "Final Dive" against Environment targets only, picking them up and throwing them at Villain targets.

I see Captain Cosmic as something of a combination of Green Lantern and Captain/Ms. Marvel, able to manipulate and redirect energy and create energy constructs.  It'd be interesting to see him have a power (probably not a base power) that read something like Deal one target X Energy damage, where X is the amount of energy damage taken since the end of your last turn.  More likely, he'll start off with a simple damaging base power like Deal one target 2 energy damage.  With the former power, it'd be neat to have his one-shots and the like deal him a small amount of energy damage, which could stack up to be unleashed in a big blast.  I could also see him having some degree of battlefield control, perhaps with an "Energy Bubble" which would function like Fanatic's "Chastise".  It might read something like Choose one non-hero target.  That target cannot deal damage and cannot be dealt damage until the start of your next turn.  At the end of your turn, this card either deals Captain Cosmic 2 energy damage or is destroyed."

Villains:  

Again, all of this is conjecture, but let's take a look at the comics tropes (particularly the space or cosmic themed ones) that don't already exist in the SotM universe. 

I could easily see one of the villains as a take on The Brood from X-Men or Annihilus' swarm as seen in Annihilation:  lots of swarming targets, perhaps which latch onto heroes a la Gloomweaver's voodoo pins, preventing the hero from dealing damage to anything but the attached 'bug'.

We don't have anything that really represents anything like Brainiac (DC) or The Collector (Marvel), so seeing a mashup of those two would be pretty neat.  Omnitron's the closest right now, but even that doesn't quite fit the archetype.  I'd see these playing as something akin to a combination of Omnitron with La Capitan, with a fair amount of equipment/ongoing 'theft', perhaps with a condition similar to Plague Rat's "Infection" cards, representing that hero being placed in the villain's menagerie.

If Captain Cosmic is true to the genre (being an inheritor of the Green Lanterns or Nova Corps), we could potentially see his nemesis as a group, rather than a single individual:  something like the Weaponers of Qward or the Manhunters would make sense.  Plus, it seems that the >G gang is more willing to provide villains in a "deck-style" format, considering the Vengeance villains and The Ennead.  I'd be interested in seeing something like a Yellow Lantern Corps in a villainous context, working similar to The Ennead's deck, though without the reliance on the Sun/Ankh/Hand symbols.

We already have a "space tyrant" in the form of Voss (owing echoes to Darkseid, Thanos, and Mongul), but perhaps we could see something on the level of an intergalactic "peacekeeper" in the vein of Ronan the Accuser or Adam Warlock, or even an homage to someone like Granny Goodness?  I'd see his deck playing out more like Iron Legacy's or Ambuscade's, perhaps with a handful of villain targets to accompany them.

Environments:

One I'd really love to see?  Something like DC's War World or Marvel's Battleworld (from Secret Wars)--a great arena where heroes and villains show down for a cheering crowd, coupled with alien beasts thrown in to even the measure.  One neat card for this sort of environment would represent the crowd's approval:  if you deal more than 5 damage in a given round, perhaps you regain a hit point or deal +1 damage until the end of your next turn.

Alternatively, the crossfire of an interstellar battle might go well, particularly if it were between Voss's invasion forces and a fleet of defending ships.  I see this one being somewhat similar to The Block, in that you'd have two opposing forces going at one another, with the Heroes and Villains taking damage from both.  

If the second doesn't happen, exploring the ruined remains of a space station or capitol ship could be a lot of fun.  I'd worry about the similarities to the Mobile Defense Platform, but I still think there's room for some great differences, especially if the creatures that took down the ship/station were still lurking aboard!

And we already have evidence of this from Parse's deck.

I'd like to see CC be the Green Lantern analogue. Energy blasts are all well and good, but we kind of have Ra for that. I'd like to see him get more creative with it. Maybe have him set up targets, like unity, that have different effects; one would be the Chastise bubble, one could be an Empyreon kind of effect, etc. Plus throw in some damage powers and maybe even some flash healing, and you have a pretty neat hero.

I think he's going to resemble GL in narrative role but not in powers; a more direct analogue would be Marvel's Nova.  As others have pointed out to me, if you combine Unity with the Argent Adept you basically have Green Lantern's powerset; it's fairly unlikely that they'll do any other heroes that manufacture targets the way Unity does, or build a "machine" of cards activating other cards that activate other cards like the Adept.  The latter is vague enough that I probably can't rule it out entirely, but still.

More likely, he'll start off with a simple damaging base power like Deal one target 2 energy damage. 

According to McBehrer, the designers vowed never to duplicate a base power between heroes (excepting the original version of F6 Wraith), so since KNYFE deals 2 energy damage and Young Legacy deals 3, Captain Cosmic might deal 1 but probably not more than that (it seems unlikely they'll go up to 4).

With the former power, it'd be neat to have his one-shots and the like deal him a small amount of energy damage, which could stack up to be unleashed in a big blast.

An interesting idea, but a bit overcomplected.  I don't know if I feel an Absolute Zero-ish "math damage" vibe coming from a character named Captain Cosmic (not even Cosmos, but ick).

So Haka and Ra dealing 1 target 2 damage doesnt count right? Or Elemental Zero dealing 1 target 2 damage? Or Chrono Ranger and Fixer both dealing 1 target 1 damage? 

That was my reaction too, but apparently damage type is considered sufficient to distinguish them, even though I don't really agree that this counts as them beging different.

Well it is so deal with it. It has some minor mechanical implications and major thematic ones, so the type matters.

That's if Captain Cosmic is going to have a damaging base power.

Right, I was just hypothesizing.

Um

Note

https://greaterthangames.com/comment/12474#comment-12474

There is no vow or rule on powers being duplicated.

Christopher understands the appeal, and can come up with powers all the time, so he can cater to the wish, but there is no vow/rule.

Okay, so the information I got (I think from McBehrer originally) was inacurate.  Such is life....

eh

I guess I put it a little too strongly. It's not that there's a RULE against it -- in fact, what I said was there was an unwritten rule, which in reality means something more like a tradition than anything -- but rather that it was a pattern that he almost broke, then changed when he got some preemptive, not-very-angry backlash. So, more of an enforced pattern, but really, it's basically the same thing, just without the implication that he can't break it if he wants to.

I disagree.  Nova's power set really revolves mostly around interstellar flight and some minor superpowers already well-emphasized by Legacy's archetype.  Nova's power set contains the following, according to Wikipedia:

The Nova Force can grant the recipient (to varying degrees depending upon rank) various abilities including superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, and perception. It also grants flight at faster than light speed, a healing factor, and energy powers. These energy powers include the ability to create an electromagnetic beam or a gravimetric pulse. It can also be used to create Star Gates. The link to the Worldmind allows the wearer to access enemy profiles, analyze an attacker's strengths and weaknesses, interface with computers, analyze energy signatures, create shields against mental attacks and receive transmissions from nearby sources.

So, in essence, a Nova Corps member's powers echo pretty much anything that Legacy (particularly Young Legacy) already does, minus the Worldmind link-up.  The most recent animated version of Nova–Sam Alexander from the Ultimate Spider-Man–emphasizes his role as "The Human Rocket" and his ability to fly at near light-speed.  Again, nothing really that a speedster-type character (i.e. Tachyon) doesn't already do.

Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) has the energy absorption angle, which really isn't something that the Nova Corps does, and has yet to be replicated in the SotM universe.  With her recent popularity, I could easily see Captain Cosmic filling her archetype.  Combining her power-set with Green Lantern provides a neat combo that fits neatly into the cosmic genre.

Building light constructs doesn't have to be done the passive, end-of-turn way that Unity does.  I could easily see Captain Cosmic creating a "Hard Light Cannon" that can then be used as a high-damage power, with the drawback of having hit points and being treated as a hero target, so that it could be destroyed both by Ongoing destruction and by taking damage.  Plus, you could end up with a card that reads something like Destroy all of your Hard Light Constructs.  Deal each non-hero target X damage, where X is twice the number of constructs you destroyed.

Also, what's so complicated in taking a small amount of damage on your turn, to use a power based on that damage?  Absolute Zero and Fanatic both already do this, as does The Scholar (with healing, rather than damage taken).  It's certainly no more complex than Setback's unlucky pool.

And there's no reason he can't be a complexity 3 hero. Those are my favorite!

I will say this about Captain Cosmic, mostly because I have wanted to see this kind of "mechanic" for awhile now.

I think it would be a neat idea for Captain Cosmic to deal himself damage to deal damage.

What I would also like to see him do though, whenever he defeats an enemy he gains the hp they have remaining. Example if he deals 2 damage to an enemy and kills it, he then gains that much hp. I also thought with this he may have the highest HP we've seen so far maybe 40 perhaps 36. I dont know I think that would be fun.

I really like this idea and think it could be awesome.  However, I'm not sure the idea fits thematically for a cosmic-type, outer space hero.

That said, if SotM ever gets a vampiric-style hero or a 'symbiote' like Venom?  It'd be a perfect Ongoing for them:  Devour Foes:  Each time you bring a foe to 0 hp, you regain hp equal to the foe's hp before you attacked them.

I was more thinking he would take damage from expending his energy damage. This taking the energy from the now defeated foe.

I can see that; it'd be pretty cool that way, too!

Could you imagine if someone with that kind of "lifetap" ability had been highly buffed by someone...say, Legacy, and incapped (Darkwatch?) Expatriette with the stackable "+1 damage the next time you hit someone" thing. And then punch the main villain (assuming it's not the Dreamer ;)) for loads and loads of damage to instantly put yourself back up to full health from a very low number :D.

You would only actually heal for the lige the target had remaining. So if he defeats the target with 2 hp left ahe would then gainonly 2 hp.

Yes, but if you one-shotted Citizen Truth and then Citizen Anvil, you'd be up 13 HP, probably half your life total, and thus all the damage done in the first half of the game would be gone and you'd easily weather the assault of Citizens while you waited for Dawn to unflip.

Not sure how youre doing 13damage in one turn. Also I said he would deal damage to himself in order to do damage. Sure you are not going to deal 13 damage to yourself to do 13 damage total.

That may or may not be his mechanic also its not like the scholar cant heal for more with grace under fire and he takes no damage for doing it. Im nit saying it is a perfect mechanic I just thought it would be a cool idea is all.

That was what I meant by him dealing the damage while heavily buffed - then he's hitting for way more...mind you I suppose if he had to hit himself first, he'd have to be careful about how much he was buffed. But again, if it was like the way Sacrosanct Martyr works...if you have a load of buffs, you'd hit yourself for loads, then hit the bad guy for that much plus buffs again on top of that, and thus heal back the extra and end up on more hp than before you made the attack (assuming the target is the main villain with loads of hp, of course). Unless you only get to lifetap if your attack actually kills the thing, in which case that probably wouldn't work.

Get Out Of The Way and two Mortal Forms to Energy come to mind.  You'd need a lot of environment targets of course.

Also I said he would deal damage to himself in order to do damage. Sure you are not going to deal 13 damage to yourself to do 13 damage total.

If we're talking a Sacrosanct Martyr effect coupled with the lifegain for anything you kill, then why would I not take 13 damage to kill a 13-HP target and gain 13 HP back?

Im nit saying it is a perfect mechanic I just thought it would be a cool idea is all.

Most ideas are cool kind of as a matter of course; the devil is always in the details.

My two cents:

Heroes:

Skyscraper -  I like the theme of hard size and maybe her innate power is something like discard x cards deals one target x damage.  If that's not the innate power maybe that's a one shot and if that's the one shot her innate power deals with drawing.   To some degree, I would see her having to be a bit of a tank since I imagine being large would cause her to receive a lot of the damage.  Also some cards would manipulate environments duets her size whether that's because chucks an environment card with HP at someone or she destroys an environment due to her size again.  

Captian Cosmic -  I see some mix between silver surfer and green latern.   His innate power or his cards cause environment manipulation.  I see him having cards that allow damage to come to him and on his turn he deals one target X damage.  Another idea is maybe he has card that requires others to discard so he can perform a powerful abilities.  

Villains:

I imagine seeing a Galactus type villain.  Part of his ability being that destroyed environments cards go under him and after he hits H cards he flips.   I would imagine his flipped side being destructive enough that you want to defeat him before that happens otherwise you have quite the uphill battle. 

Environments:

I see one of the environments be planets like Earth or the Thorian home world.  The idea being that devastation is coming to those planets and thus you dealing with world events like Tidal waves, meteor storms, or maybe even an armada shooting at the planet.  The mechanic with the environment being that one of these disasters is happening at any time and force the heroes to give up some ability (similar to some stuff megalopolis but they go away on their own).   Edit.  It could be something like ongoings/equipment affects and/or powers are negated/can't be used. 

Interesting to note that as long as Sky-Scraper isn't around, Tantrum is the one card in Ermine's otherwise infuriating deck which is actually likely to help the heroes.

Calypso was pretty helpful in a google+ game yesterday - she kept putting Expect the Worst back on top of Scholar's deck so that he could grab it and play it again.

I like the idea of an environment being an enemy, or friendly I suppose, armada. Dealing with various ships and alien warriors. Perhpas even something similiar to the MDP and have it be one giant capital ship

Having seen the V5 in action now, I find myself suspicious of the assumption that Tantrum can be taken as predictive of what Skyscraper will do.  A lot of the nemeses' abilities don't seem to have much in particular to do with their counterpart.  Equity for instance didn't seem to do anything that particularly messes with Naturalist, nor Man-Grove with Nightmist, nor Zhu Long with Fixer; the only ones I can think of which did seem to correspond were Calypso, The Crackjaw Crew, and to a fairly slight extent the Radioactivist.  Yes we could look at Empyreon and assume that Captain Cosmic's shtick must be making villains damage themselves, but it's also possible that the nemeses were just designed to do general villain-target things, and to do them slightly better if their storyline-based enemy happens to be in play.  Tantrum might be designed to ironically reflect Sky the way Calypso does Ra, but she also might just be designed to give the Ermine deck environment destruction for purely mechanical reasons.

You gotta think outside the box a bit.

Zhu Long brings back Targets from the dead. Fixer brings back Tools from the dead.

Just an example.

That, my dear sir, is a stretch and a half to put it mildly.  By that logic Argent Adept is a necromancer, as he's far more effective at graveyard recursion than Fixer.

More effective you say? Wouldn't it depend on what your goal is? If your goal is to get destroyed/discarded equipment cards from the trash, then Fixer has Argent beat, as he gets them all from the trash to the respective player's hands, while possibly dishing out a bit of damage. While Argent will only allow each hero to put one of them on top of the deck, but heal them for 1. If the majority of the cards you want to retrieve are not equipment cards and only want to get 1 for each hero, then Vernal Sonata will be more effective.

You, my dear sir, missed the point entirely. 

Even if the goal is to get equipment cards back, Fixer has only two copies of Salvage Yard, while Adept has four of Vernal Sonata.  Adept also has far better ability to dig through his deck and find them all, or even to eventually reshuffle and get to use them again, given that he has Arcane Cadence and two Songs which can draw him cards, plus one which can flip through his top cards.  I would bet that over a series of games, Adept can return more equipment than Fixer can, it's just that Fixer will do it all at once in a single game, making it look more impressive.

Let's not get into the "Fixer's underpowered/actually just fine/awesome" arguments again. 

You're asking the sun not to shine.

Oh wait, you're from England arn't you? That expression doen't work as well with you folks 

Contrary to popular belief the sun does actually shine in England, we just direct it all at Buck Palace so the Monarchy can bask in it.

I'm asking the rain not to fall, you mean?

I ask both of those things on a very regular basis.  Give me a home where it's always overcast but never precipitates, and I'll be a very happy troglodyte indeed.

I like the rain. It makes things grow so I can eat them.