Maybe I’ve just been luck to this point, but so far Deadline has been kind of a punk. Anyone with ongoing destruction ruins his day, and either Legacy or Ra can totally de-fang him. Further, I just don’t understand how his flipped side would ever end the game.
What am I not seeing?
Fixer, Haka, and Bunker.
Have fun.
So he’s difficulty 3 based on one specific combination of heroes?
Assuming only one combination of heroes have zero access to ongoing destruction. Otherwise, there may very well be other combinations.
That’s just the first trio that came to my mind.
The Sentinels, the Scholar, and Captain Cosmic, I’m pretty sure. KNYFE…kinda does. Legacy and Ra don’t, but we’ve covered how that doesn’t matter.
Matriarch is difficulty 1 based on a specific combination of heroes. It doesn't invalidate their potential; only that you've assembled a logical team.
With admittedly limited plays against him, so far they've always come down to only 5 or 6 cards left in the environment deck, so his potential danger has been on his flip side rather than his damage dealing side. That seems to fit thematically too - he's not really trying to hurt humans so much as he's trying to wreck the world enough that civilizations backslide and we don't continue on the path that results in the cosmic event that destroyed his people.
Even if you destroy one of his ongoings per round, he's going to flip and take 3 environment cards out of the deck about every other round, so he's got an ~10-11 round limit on the game. He definitely seems like one that'll scale noticeably based on the number of heroes.
That’s one of the things that confuses me. How do you get the environment deck so low? Am I misreading his card or something? If you destroy all environment cards, then shuffle the trash into the deck before you discard from it, then how are you peeling so many cards off the top of the deck? Are there 15 catastrophe cards in play?
You do not discard the cards, you remove them from the game.
Maybe that's what you're missing?
Just did this! And won, Mister Fixer at 18, Haka at 12, and Bunker at 10. 8 Environment cards removed from the game. Victory was achieved on the 6th round when Mister Fixer played Tire Iron to used strike to deal Deadline 1 damage, reducing him to 1 and thus destroying him.
Yeah, that's probably what you're missing. It's not a discard, it OBLITERATES them. They are GONE. Like, the environment deck TOTAL will run out of cards.
Also try his advanced mode on side 1. It makes the game much nastier.
I still think that 3 damage is a bit steep. 2 would have been sufficient.
It's advanced, it's supposed to be more than sufficient.
I mean for an advanced mode, obviously. Like, for Iron Legacy. Making his damage irreducible is sufficient. Increasing it by 1 in addition would be excessive. I think 3 is just a little excessive. But I guess all it really does is encourages you to focus less on delaying the inevitable and more on winning the damage race.
What it does is gives a high cost to trying to win by delaying the destruction. If you want to keep hem from flipping it will soct you a lot.
Deadline is a bit like Gloomweaver, both 3's, and both very susceptible to being shut down. Fortunately Deadline's advanced mode fixes his weakness pretty well.
I don't know if I'd call him SUSCEPTIBLE, though, like Gloomy is. Sure, you can delay him a bit, but with Unnatural Disaster and him playing 2 cards a turn -- plus instantly activating on the turn he flips -- unless you have a lot of really consistent ongoing destruction, you aren't likely to be able to do much to slow him down. You can stop him from playing cards, but honestly, what villain is that NOT an awesome counter to?
Excellent. During earlier playtesting builds those poor guys got obliterated over and over again…
I really like Bunker against Deadline for a few reasons.
Ammo Drop has insaine value. His gatling gun and grenades are great answers to his armor device that prevents damage. And Omni Cannon is great for the damage race.
One of Deadline’s weaknesses compared to other villains is that because he nukes his catastrophes, he’s less likely to blitz into a superior board state that the heroes are unable to deal with for the rest of the game. So he’s less likely to get blow-out victories than some of the other villains. (I think. I’ve only played him once)
I don’t know, I’ve had turns where he starts out with 2 catastrophes, then busts out 5 more with an unnatural disaster, then wipes out half of the environment in one fell swoop, while dealing 7 irreducible fire damage to everybody.
It’s true that he doesn’t set up ridiculous shutdown combos like Dawn, the Chairman, or La Capitan, but he doesn’t need to. He has brutal combo attacks that can devastate when they are least expected.
You physically have to destroy the cards. A pair of scissors or a lighter will do it. Makes Deadline seriously nasty to play. I've already lost half of the Megalopolis enviro deck. 
Ben
I'm missing half of the targets in the game. Haka ate so much.
Ohhhhh, you remove them! Okay, yes, definitely my issue. Thanks for the clarification.
Even following the rules, he has yet to impress our group as far as challenges go.
Then again, the first time we fought him, I might have Mistbound him for five out of the six turns it took to K.O. him. Yeah...not allowed to do that again.
Second time was without shenanigans, but we had consistent ongoing removal on the table which, as mentioned, seriously hamstrings his game plan. He still came off as pretty easily handled.
Mistbound any villain in the game for 5 turns and let me know how difficult they are. Deadline falls into that category of 3 difficulty villains who have a specific weakness (in his case ongoing destruction). Honestly, now that I've played all the final production versions, I think Infinitor is harder on average (especially on Advanced, that's an insane battle)
Deadline advanced for his front side is more balancing than straight harder.
Deadline will most likely be played Advanced front side, non-advanced back side as his standard form. We do the same for Ennead, because normal is mostly too easy, and advanced on the back is really hard. So for our "we want a challenge but not a really tough challenge," games we do advanced front, normal back.
Follow-up questions about Deadline's flipping:
So, 3 Catastrophes in play at end of turn. He Flips. Does his new "end of turn" event on the back side take effect right away, or at the end of his next turn? If it does take effect the same turn he flips, does it happen right away, or does it become the "newest" card in play and therefore the last card of "end of turn" to take effect?
It is still the end of turn, so the "new" end of turn effect takes place. Likewise, when the Plague Rat flips at the start of the turn, his start of turn effects on the new side also trigger.
And if Kaargra is flipped by "Get back in there!" on the second card play, she can end up playing three cards in a turn.
Dawn is another one - have enough Citizens out when she flips and she'll instantly flip back and then you can happily massacre everyone without worrying about her becoming invincible at a bad time :D.
Does the new side take place immediately, or does the villain card get moved to the end of the effect chain as "newest card in play"?
It's immediate. The ruling of Order of Operations for Start- and End-of-turn effects is based on when the card as a whole enters play, not the particular text. Since the villain card as a whole (both sides) was in play first, it acts first.
So, after a villain flips, you do not have to remember how many cards came out before it flipped and after it flipped.
Another example is where one of the Ennead that came out later dies first. Even though it flipped first, the incapped ability of an Ennead that entered the battle earlier but died later would trigger first.
Thanks for the prompt (and very clear!) response!
I usually give Deadline some (like 40) extra HP to make him tougher (I think he is a 1), but the idea of doing the front side on advanced is great.