Future Alternate Villain Card Ideas

Am I aloud to post speculation/ideas for new villain promo cards?

Speculation is certainly fine, as long as you keep it vague.  Posting outright designs would be dicey, but I believe >G has said that it's okay as long as you're doing variations on their characters, rather than creating something completely new.  There was certainly extensive discussion of possible Gloomweaver fixes around here, before Skinwalker came out.

That is OK.

We are allowed to post custom promos even.  Just not new decks or ideas for decks.

In that case, I'd like to see a post-reveal version of Miss Information.  Something where she's leading a team of supervillains, like the Vengeance Five or Ambuscade's little clique, consisting of the HP-having Diversions in her deck, all of which start in play and the other two Diversions are not used, and her Diversionary Tactics cards do something else.  What Doesn't Kill You would be extremely strong, obviously.  (Is it ever made clear what powers, if any Aminia has after the reveal?  I'm assuming that the whole point of her schemes to distract the heroes was to get superpowers for herself, so she could beat them up personally, and her B-side's advanced text seems to suggest a degree of invincibility.)

I'd also like to see a slightly more potent version of Plague Rat who has the Rat keyword and explicitly works with the Final Wasteland somehow.  And maybe a Kismet promo, though I have no idea what changes might be effective or interesting there.

Plague Rat isn't really part of the Final Wasteland, though - that came about becuase his infection got out of control among the population of the planet, meaning all the gribbly monsters stopped hidng away and started emerging from their various hiding places because there weren't enough humans left around capable of stopping them. Plague Rat'll be long dead by the time Earth is known as the "Final Wasteland" - that's gotta be a few centuries away, at least.

If anything, Rat would work better with Pike, especially if you want to give him the "Rat" keyword. Plus there's all the vats and stuff, especially the Irradiated Cyclohexane Vat if Rat can get out his Sewer Fiend card.

But if Plague Rat managed to get sucked into a time warp during a fight with Chrono Ranger, it would be like the Second Coming to all the Final Wasteland creatures; the One Rat returned to lead his people to glory. 

Plague Rat would lead his Ratmen to rule the Wasteland over all the other creatures. 

OK. Gotta go... I need to go write this story down. 

Plague Rat, savior of the Rat people would be a great alternate card for him.

The question is how to make it work inside his deck.

It would be easy if the heroes weren't the targets of infection and Plague rat wasn't dealing so much damage with his cards.

Maybe something like:

Any target with Rat in its title or keywords is treated as being Infected.

Add:

When an Infected target would deal damage to Plague Rat redirect that damage to the highest HP hero target.

When an infected hero deals (H) damage to another Hero target in a turn you may destroy their infection card.

I'm going to work on this.  Could be fun.

Huh. May need to play that game. Plague Rat in Final Wasteland against Eternal Haka and our time-travelling heroes Chrono, Omnitron-X, and Visionary. I'll have to think about who else might work for a fifth hero…

Golem Unity maybe?

"CON will help in the fight this time ! I knew I had kept this cap somewhere ! Now if only I could remember of this kind of body walks…"

According to Christopher, one of the Rat Beasts is the Plague Rat. The others are his descendants.

How could Plague Rat have descendants? Is there a lady Plague Rat somewhere around that we don't know about, or do people eventually turn into rat people from an enhanced form of the infection?

People turn into the rat monsters due to the infection. You can see the heroes starting to get affected in the art of Plague Rat's deck.

Plague Rat lives that long? Wow, missed that one...didn't realise the Infection gave him longer life too. Shouldn't the world be completely overpopulated by millions and millions of Rat Beasts then, if that's what the Infection does? Or does it only have that effect on Plague Rat himself?

Plague Rat is the Patient Zero for the infection, so it probably affects him differently than others.  And as much as the idea of a Lady Rat (that in itself could be a promo card) appeals to me, there's no particular reason to think PR's "descendants" are anything other than others he has mutated - further "generations" of the plague, but not blood offspring.  After all, I find it hard to picture him refraining from slaughtering someone for nine months while they make a baby for him.  I don't think the Rat Plague is a natural thing anyway; it seems almost more like a curse, something metaphysical which doesn't operate rationally.  (Perhaps Gloomweaver created it?)

In a world with superheroes, aliens and sentient computers it's not that far-fetched that someone/thing could find Plague Rat attractive.

Furries maybe?

Oh I don't doubt that part…it's whether Plague Rat would care about anything other than shredding said person to bits with Tooth and Claw that I'm uncertain of.  Does he retain anything resembling a human (or rodent, for that matter) libido, or is he a creature of pure rabid violence who lives only to kill?  The latter seems more consistent with most of what we see of him, although the one card where he drags Fanatic off into the sewers does beg a few interesting questions on the topic.

Why would Plague Rat be shredding someone with a MtG card?

*ducks*

That's Tooth and Nail, I believe.  Tooth and Claw is a card in Rat's deck (actually the one that shows him carrying off Miss Fanny).

Procreation is one of the most powerful biological urges any species has. If he procreates through spreading the disease that answers that question, if he doesn't that explains not randomly killing people who are 'infected' by him.

Any natural species, yes.  That's part of why I don't think the Rat is anything of the sort.

I was wondering if anyone would catch that.  It is Tooth and Nail, but actually, there is also a MtG card called Tooth and Claw.  It creates creatures named "Carnivore".

I haven't played Rat yet, so I didn't know about the card in his deck.

Yeah, I actually had that same thought, but Tooth and Nail is much more famous.

Tooth and Nail records was an indy label in Seattle in the mid-late nineties, some of their bands were pretty good.

Tooth and Claw is also a Doctor Who episode. It had a werewolf, and he didn't care much for procreation either...

The phrase originally comes from the poem "In Memoriam" by Lord Alfred Tennyson. I'm not going to put the whole thing here, but here is the section "Tooth and Claw" comes from:

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

English major, out!

And here I was, going on the Forum in an attempt to temporarily escape my Tennyson term paper… back to work…

Either that or Tennyson stole it from Dr. Who.

Because, you know, Time Travel.


Ah, phantaskippy. You're awesome. 

So when did the "Tooth and Nail" version show up?  Or for that matter "Hammer and Claw"?

Tooth and Nail comes from humans not having claws.

I wouldn't mind seeing a variant of Dawn that played with her Return With the Dawn cards:  perhaps some sort of zombie/resurrection mechanic, a la DC Comics' Blackest Night.  I don't have many ideas beyond that basic concept, though.

I'd also be interested in seeing a version of Apostate that was less focused on his Relics and more focused on his Demons--something like a demonic summoner, trying to bring about the Apocalypse or such.  Maybe you start with an Apocalypse card in play (which is indestructible), place the other on the bottom of the deck, and put all Demons in the trash.  Each round, Apostate would summon a Demon from the trash.  If he ever runs out of cards in the Villain deck, the Heroes lose:  game over.  If you manage to defeat him on his front side, he flips and goes into full-on combat mode...

I can't pretend to KNOW what promos are coming, but I can say which ones I would like to see. A Plague Rat that -- rather than dealing irreducible damage and relying on one-shots for infections -- pulls infections reliably (maybe even hiding them under Plague Locus) and deals additional damage when an Infection Search card comes out. While Plague Locus is out, infections come go under it instead of into the trash, and when it's destroyed, all infections go into play immediately. PR flips when there is no Locus in play, and deals additional damage on that side.

Maybe a promo Akash'Bhuta would be neat. No idea what kind of mechanics would be involved, but maybe one less dependent on environment targets -- she's absolutely DECLAWED in the Freedom Tower -- but plays extra cards consistently.

A Sinister Six-style, Vengeance-format Ambuscade deck would be awesome. Not a promo, but I felt like mentioning it. Maybe a less cloaking-centric Ambuscade promo. Maybe keep his flip mechanic, but give him more HP and not make him immune -- but more damaging -- on his flip side.

I'd LOVE to have Ambuscade lead his own team of villain. The art in Setback's deck gives me hope !

As a promo, I'd like another version of the Chairman and Operative, with them, for instance, trying to build a new branch of the organization. They'd begin with the underlings int their deck, and the underbosses and prison breaks in the trash. They should play two or more cards a round, and would win at the beginning of the round if they have all underbosses in play.

I actually made one that did this! She interacted with the environment a lot more, and had two sides, one of which corresponded to high-target environments, and one of which corresponded to nontarget-heavy environments. The way it works is that on the "target" side, she played an extra env card the first time each turn a nontarget environment card came into play, and it was another nontarget, she flipped (Because two in a row suggests a nontarget heavy environment) and on the other side, she did the same thing for environment target cards. It's a mechanic I feel works really well, and interestingly makes her the most dangerous in very mixed environments (because she'll end up playing many extra environment cards, and flipping often which forces the heroes to be capable of handling both sides rather than just one.)

Actually, since it's apparently cool if we share such things…

(starting side) MOTHER NATURE:

The first time each turn a nontarget environment card is put into play, play the top card of the environment deck. If it is another nontarget environment card, flip Akash'Bhuta.

Redirect all damage dealt to villain targets by the environment to the hero target with the highest hp.

At the end of each villain turn, put a random environment target from the environment trash into play.

Advanced: Decrease damage dealt to environment targets by 1.

NATURE'S WRATH

The first time each turn a environment target is put into play, play the top card of the environment deck. If it is another environment target environment card, flip Akash'Bhuta.

Redirect all damage dealt to villain targets by the environment to the hero target with the highest hp.

If an environment card is destroyed during a hero turn, Akash'Bhuta deals that hero H toxic damage.

Advanced: Increase damage dealt by the environment by 1.

(200 hp)

The redirection can be brutal if she's got a lot of limbs in play and an environment card comes into play that deals damage to all targets. So, y'know, be careful if you're fighting the living spirit of nature in a place that has frequent volcanic eruptions and such. Also she's sorely nerfed by Danger Sense, although she still has all her limbs and normal cards, so not COMPLETELY nerfed. But it's kind of an issue that means if you want a serious challenge, you might want to avoid Legacy.

ECCH that looks horrifying! Creative, though. I like it, in concept at the very least.

It'd be interesting to have a version of Abby who starts with a more sane HP total, say 80 or 100, but is immune to self-damage.  And has a more meaningful interaction with the Environment.  I never play her non-Advanced, because she just dicks with the Environment deck to no real purpose and flips on random occasions without actually changing how she plays significantly on either side.  I definitely prefer to see her switching between defense and offense modes.  But that means that for my purposes, she essentially lacks a Normal/Advanced distinction (like Gloomweaver, whose non-advanced version is completely pointless except when introducing newbies, and debatably even then), so it gives me an "i wuz robbed, I tellzya" feeling with her in terms of variety.  A promo would definitely be nice for that reason.

Maybe when the Cosmic Being shows up, that'll be the time to get a "The Earth Enraged / Alone Against the Cosmos" promo for Abby.

May I ask: why is akash being reffered to as abby?

I'm guessing it's because Akash-Bhuta is usually abbreviated A-B...Abby...

Envisioner has a tendency to give nicknames to the female characters for some reason:  Fanatic becomes Fanny, the aforementioned A-B becomes Abby...

It's not him, it's the forum as a whole. And it's all characters. We've got Matty for Matriarch, Cosmitron for Cosmic Omnitron, Omni-X for Omnitron-X, etc.

I wasn't consciously doing it to the females in particular, the names just tend to work out that way.  Haka is short enough not to want for any abbreviation, Chrono-Ranger can easily be CR or just one of the two halves of the name, but Akash always looks weird to me, so I go either with Abby or Akasha, and the latter has connotations that don't really fit.  Besides having three syllables, Fanatic brings out the irreverent in me because she's so utterly committed to her dogmatic beliefs.  Unity is faster to type, though not to say, so I only occasionally shorter her to Uni.  Legacy is usually Legs, whether it's the two male versions or Young Pauline.  Bunker, Ra, Scholar, Argent…pretty much all the male characters have short, convenient names, or can be abbreviated to two letters, like AZ or AA.  And Omnitron-X can be abbreviated many ways, but is genderless.  This changes a bit in Vengenace, with Naturalist becoming Natch.  And among the villains, I pretty much always shorten Gloomweaver to Gloomy, drop all of Voss's titles, refer to members of the Ennead as "Ennies", etc.  "Chair" just sounds weird though, so even though the Chairman's name is two-point-five syllables, I tend to say the whole thing (not counting "the").

(Of course any time and effort savings from using these shortcuts, I just spent typing all this gobbledygook…)

So is akash feamle? I also use many of those nicknames (fanny and Omni-x amongst others) I had just neve read abby before. Guess I haven't been on the forums long enough. 

I hadn't seen the "Abby" nickname either, prior to his use of it there.  

I always assumed Akash-Bhuta to be female, personally.  Mother Nature and all that jazz...  A-B is also referred to as "her" in the bio.

Her bio describes her as female.

Also, one of her cards -- I think Rejuvinating Entropy? -- has Argent Adept saying "Akash'Bhuta isn't a force of nature... She's THE force of nature."

Isn't she also described as "goddess of chaos" or something, somewhere as well?

The bio actually includes that: "The spirit of chaos and destruction in nature, some ancient cultures revered her as a goddess, calling her "Mother Nature", but they were all destroyed by their own deity during their worship." 

I don’t remember where but in the way back whens someone pointed out that her name means “male sky ghost” in some language.

Yes as many others have pointed out, Akash'Bhuta is explicitly female.  The real question is, if Akash'Bhuta was male, would I refer to him as Abby?  Probably not; I'd more likely use AB.  So perhaps I am being a little sexist in styling the name to be more dimunutive - but then, she's a lady, so I'm flattering her by not mentioning her weight (several million tons).

Abe.

You just mentioned it... I think she is going to come after you now. If you see any rampaging mountains, beware!!

(Joke)

Wanna know how I knew she’s female?
The fact that on several cards(Earth’s Sacrifice, Rejuvenating Entropy, Primeval Eruption, not to mention her ‘Chaos-Bound Creator’ side)she has breasts with a tiny waist and curved hips.
If I could give a vote for a villain promo, I’d want a WWII Baron Blade. We have a Legacy and Bunker to match.