My GF and I just finished a game. Tachyon, Scholar, Visionary, and Haka against Miss Information in the Wagner Mars Base. Every freaking card played by either Villain or Location just decimated either our hands or our play areas. We won, but it took twice as long as any other game we've played and it was flat out frustrating.
Any other Villain/Location combinations that are just nasty or hard to play against?
Well Akash'Bhuta specifically interacts with the environment by playing an extra card when environment targets enter or leave play. When she came out, half an environment deck being targets was alot. Since she came out, we got the promo environments of Silver Gultch and Final Wasteland which are almost entirely targets. And then there is the Block. Not only are 10 out of 15 cards targets, but one of the non-targets will summon H-1 environment targets from the deck.
The Matriarch in the Tomb of Anubis made for a pretty horrific third game ever. I finally gave up on killing the birds and just tried to survive them - and then bam, the Tomb offs them all at once with two Cohorts and two Carrion Fields out. I didn't even bother to count it up. (Mind, I had missed the fact that Carrion Fields doesn't hit the highest-HP hero, but it was still almost certainly a kill based on Matty's psychic damage alone.)
Ambuscade in the Block was terrifyingly boring. Especially when the Block shut down damage for a while and we didn't have environment destruction so we just sat there for two turns staring at Ambuscade, it was like that epic tension building scene in Star Wars episode 1 when they stare at each other through a force field. Epic drama there. (epic)
Megalopolis Chairman has gone really bad for me before. Having to choose to give up a card play or power each turn is no fun when you are getting swarmed.
One time Ruins of Atlantis played Voss's device that plays the top card when a minion enters play, right before forced deployment put 13 minions into play. We still won that one, but only because we had G.I. Bunker and some Light speed barrages, having his entire deck in play wasn't cool. Luckily the gene-bound troops fall apart if their leader is slain so the ruins were safe for democracy.
Last game I played against the Chairman in Rook City, Rook City is mine played both Hostage Situation and Paparazzi in the same turn. Everyone had to draw two cards for a round while pretty much all the thugs and underbosses came out.
That's Megalopolis, Nielzabub, not Rook City ;). But yeah, Papparazzi, Hostage Situation, and the Traffic Pile-Up are all horrible, and we've had more than one game where those cards basically came out one after the other, every round, so we had a whole load of consecutive rounds where there was something we couldn't do and therefore failed to get properly set up to destroy whichever villain it was we were fighting.
I agree on Matriarch in the Tomb being very horrible - thanks to Akana, we once had every Environment card out at once. Meanwhlie I think Lilian got out most of her stuff, too. Contrast this to when we (deliberately) fought her in the Final Wasteland and had an epic-fun time as all her stuff got totally destroyed (first environment card - Horrid Skunk Ape, second - Unforgiving Wasteland...lol, just lol) except for one lonely Carrion Field. She's horrible in Atlantis too, though - bloody Mystical Defences, arrgh :P. And the Atlantean Font of Power too, actually...and Pillars of Hercules, what with all the extra card play she gets from those. Booo :P.
An environment letting Voss play a card and him bringing out Forced Deployment tends to go very badly as well, seeing as there's nothing we can do to try and eliminate the resultant Minion swarm before they start ganking us :P.
Really, anyone in Rook City is bad because...well, it's Rook City. That said, the best hero to fight there is probably Iron Legacy, just because battles against him tend to be so short that the environment doesn't really get a chance to do anything ;). Environments with mass-AE damage can be nasty if you're fighting the Dreamer, just because of your having to take her damage too so that she doesn't die horribly (volcano, anyone?).
The Chairman in Rook City is really bad. The Chairman isn't hindered by anything there except the doctor and Tony. Falling Statuery sometimes helps by falling on a fence or a thief.
Any villain with lots of targets that deal damage on Wagner Moon Base. Villainous Weaponary swings games at the wrong times far too often.
Ruins of Atlantis is a difficult environment since there are so many effects that helps villains, and random krakens can be very difficult to handle. I hate the Leaky Room.
Time Cataclysm can be bad because of multiple environment plays or actually lost in time.
Although the Block has lots of targets, and many of them attack heroes, I think it's actually a pretty good "neutral" environment that can be controlled.
Plague Rat is a nightmare in Pike Chemical.
His damage is often irreducible, so the Biomimetic vats usually end up being a hindrance just to the heroes.
He can be immune to toxic, which means that cyclohexane vats can wreck everything, as can chemical explosions.
Supercooled trisolvent vats... are just mean. always.
And rats! like we don't have enough of a rat problem!
It's not the chemical explosions you have to worry about. It's the checmical exposions that are the worst.
Well, the chairman is making some pretty cutting edge stuff. Checmicals are WAY too advanced for conventional spelling- as are their explosions!
I was exposioned by chemicals once, it was horrible.
I think you played that one wrong, mate 
why so? If forced deployment was already in play (which was the impression that I got), then environment played a quark drive. Then on voss's turn, forced deployment brings out everything (+1 card for Voss's play phase, +1 card for quark drive).
even if the environment played a forced deployment, Voss's Win condition check comes before forced deployment activates…so you always have a chance to cull the minions (or in the case of GI bunker, cut through Voss's armor and try and take him out). Seems like it played out fine!
I think Meerkat was pointing out that Phanta seems to have missed that the Quark-Drive Translocator only brings out a card the first time a Minion enters play - his/her post is implying that he/she thought it happened every time a Minion entered play.
Indeed misplayed.
That wasn't the worst Voss has thrown even played wrong, Just had a game last night where we had to survive three forced deployments in a row with 14 minions involved, we still won that one too, although the environment did save us once when the ten minions rule was going to cost us the game.
Ruins is the most gonzo environment, and probably my personal favorite for that very reason (Realm of Discord is the other main candidate for that, maybe Pike Industrial for third place). Getting extra card plays off Pillars or Fount is awesome, even if the villain gets them first. I'll have to try Miss Information there sometime, just so she'll get her four Clues out fast and we'll be past the annoying "why are we fighting, there aren't any targets?" phase of the battle.
I've played in Rook City twice, and it wasn't especially scary either time. But I dread Megalopolis because of all the annoying "skip a third of your turn" cards. I'm just waiting to see all three of them come out at once, so the heroes can literally do nothing for a whole round. Time Cataclysm is the other one I hate, just because of how random all the effects are. And to be on topic for the thread, La Capitan in that one was particularly awful.
You have noticed that Pillars plays the top card of the villain deck every turn, right? That is including each hero and environment turns.
I've run into Pillars a lot, and it is amazing how many of those times we've had Takedown or Mistbound. What is the best is Rook City is Mine playing Pillars of Hercules and Leaking Room, although not as bad as Papparazzi + Hostage Situation
Ah, I knew that in general terms but had misremembered the details. I thought it was something like "every deck plays an extra card every turn", like the Fount of Atlantean Power but happening over time and not ending in one round. But it doesn't automatically play extra hero cards, it just allows heroes to do extra stuff while automatically playing villain cards. I stand by the assessment that this is fun.
Realm of Discord is easily my favourite environment. The Distortions are for the most part just fun. Pike Industrial Complex however, I think has wiped more hero teams than any villain in our games.
Akash'bhuta in The Block is rather fun, since The Block pretty much cycles itself.
I dislike Realm of Discord a lot. Playing only 3 heroes those icky tentacles that pop and prevent one of your heroes using it's power it's crippling and with 9 life you have to ignore the Villain turn to get it down. Then those bubbles are a mild annoyance, but still. And then the Vortex for a reset. Some distoritions are mildly nice but they tend to favour Villains with mooks.
Add that I played La Capitan twice there... stupid walk the plank.World of difference fighting Spite there.
Miss Information is not a very damaging Villain, so she's scariest in high damage environments, like Pike Industrial Complex.
Try playing her with a diplomatic envoy, misplaced memo, and that card that increases damage by villain targets. six damage to the two highest every turn from an invulnerable target is not low damage.
True, but that's a very specific combo of cards that would have to happen. Missy always starts with one Diversion in play, but only some of the Diversions are targets (three IIRC, with at least two others I'm sure of). Since my first (and to date only) game against her started with no targets in play, I inherently think of her as the "nothing to fight" villain.
Diplomatic envoy by itself is pretty terrible. It has around 10 or 12 Hp and even without a damage boost will do 4 damage to the two heroes with the highest HP. Now, if you have damage reduction, that's not so bad, but chances are any damage reduction ongoings or equipment were already destroyed.
The "Surprise shopping trip" from Time Cataclysm combined with the Matriarch can give you a phobia of malls.
14 actually. Yeah, he's much nastier than the "Kitty" unless you manage to have DR somehow.
I've had it save the group by blowing up birds before they chain into each other. Birds hate malls.
Does this actually work? SST triggers off a card being "played", which to my way of thinking suggests it has yet to actually enter play. If you pulled a one-shot, you'd resolve SST before you resolved the effects of the one-shot; this seems to be the same principle, as the first effect of a non-one-shot card is putting it into play on the table, or so I would think.
I don't have the card in front of me, but I'm almost positive that SST triggers off of a card entering play and fowl trigger off of themselves being played from the villain deck. We have a ruling that Expatriette's Hair Trigger reflexes is not supposed to shut down the Matriarch's chain reaction, so Surprise Shopping Trip shouldn't either.
The exact timing of triggering things off of a card being played and off of a card entering play (and on resolving a one-shot when it enters play) has been debated with no real resolution, so it is hard to say the exact justification of WHY HairTrigger doesn't shut down the chain reaction. It has been suggested that the 'play another fowl card' effect should just be treated like it was on the Matriarch instead of each fowl card.
I was under the impression that technically it should shut down the birds, by wording and rulings, but that that is not the intention at all, so we all play it the way they intended, not the way the rulings and wording would do it.
Well the thing is Hair Trigger is a hero card that stays in play forever and not so much about trip because it only ever lasts a turn? There's other enviroments that just shut down some villains and haven't been errata'd.
Like, if Expat gets her as written Reflexes out, Matriarch basically stops doing anything for the rest of the game. If Shopping Trip comes out, you get to imagine her having a tough time trying to direct her birds through a mall, and then next turn it's back to normal.
Do you know what also boosts Diplomatic Envoy? Irradiated Cyclohexane Vats.
Obsidian Field, Imbued Fraility, Phosphorescent Chamber, Blighted Streets, and Explosive Wagon.
Atlantis and Insular Primalis are, of course, also high damage Environments that Miss Information will tend to do well in.
I've played three games each in Atlantis and Insula, and not a single hero was incapacitated in any of them. (Granted, none of those games were against, say, Iron Legacy.) In my experience, the dinosaurs gnaw on the villain's minions far more often than they threaten the heroes; about the only damage we ever take is from Rivers of Lava. And Atlantis is dangerous, but also potentially hugely rewarding; Font of Atlantean Power gets 3-5 free hero cards and only one free Villain one, and Pillars of Hercules is practically like giving each hero a second turn in exchange for one Villain card. Unless I was fighting the Matriarch, I'd virtually always take that trade. Plus the Krakens, like Velociraptors, are more likely to pick off the villain's mooks, or even finish the Villain himself, than to endanger a hero.
The only Environment I really fear so far is Time Cataclysm, just because of how brain-melting it is. The others might be dangerous, but usually hurt the villain team at least as much as the heroes. Plague Rat is actually really interesting for being able to immunize himself from enviro damage. Should try him in Rook City sometime, see if it can manage to make me sweat.
One villain card per turn, so its (H) hero turns for (H) + 2 villain plays. Electropulse explosives on Environment and then at the start of the villain turn so both go off before you can do anything are unavoidable, lethal and soon make you hate that card with rhe unfettered fury of a thousand suns.
Hm...I've been trying to lose a game to Omnitron, and have not played him in the Ruins...thanks for the tip. (I will admit that keeping the Pillars out past the last hero's turn is suicidally bold, but even then, you'd have to be spectacularly unlucky for the next two villain cards to both be EPEs. It would be nice for Omni to get Components that way, as I virtually never see them fire.)
Thinking about this flavor-wise, the Mystical Defenses of Atlantis look awful mechanical to me. If Omnitron does well there, maybe Atlantis was a machine society? Yes, I like this idea a lot. May have to make it a theme match. Tempest, Ra, and Omnitron-X? Yeah, definitely doing that someday.
Pillars of Hercules is a lot better for almost any Villain than it is for the Heroes, unless Mistbound or Take Down is played. A lot of Heroes simply won't have a second Power to use, and they may not have good cards to play either, because Phosphorescent Chambers wreck players' hands.
However, there are several heroes that can make sure the villain can't play cards. A well-timed Ground Pound (or anything like it) can turn PoH into a game changer with one card.
There's Legacy and Nightmist and that's it. Ground Pound and Grease Gun can prevent a ton of damage, but that's assuming they're not destroyed by one of those extra Villain card plays.
It's a gamble, to be sure, but it's one that I have found very frequently pays off, and it's just plain fun IMO.
Pillars of hercules vs. Baron Blade advanced on his front side. None of us had environment destruction, we pulled 2 hasten doom, his heal, his shield, a platform, and I think a batallion or something. We did not save the Earth.
Reckless phenomena like that is presumably what made Atlantis into a Ruins in the first place.
Any time the Pillars of Hercules comes out, we try to get rid of it ASAP - having the villain get a free card play at the start of every single turn can be very horrible. Imagine if you were fighting Apostate and at the start of the lart hero's turn he pulled an Apocalypse, and that hero didn't have any Ongoing desctruction? Ouch. Or if Akash'Bhuta played a Primeval Eruption which chained into a whole bunch of other stuff. And if she did that on each of the hero turns...wow, that could get crowded fast. Could be fun, though, in a totally insane kind of way ;). I suppose the Pillars has the potential to be useful against someone like the Chairman, though, if he hasn't flipped yet and it brings out an Underboss which you manage to destroy before his turn comes around. Or Citizen Dawn, if she's flipped and you need enough Citizens to come out so that she'll flip back on her next turn.
The Matriarch, on the other hand...<shudder>. Even worse if the Mystical Defences are out.
Pillars is a great way to flip the Matriarch back to her first side, so that is a positive right?
Maybe, if you can survive all the birds getting exploded while both the Cohorts are probably out (assuming she's flipped in the first place) ;).