Plague Rat vs any 3 heroes in Pike Industrial

How do you win this one?

Plague Rat's damage can't be reduced, so Stun Bolts and such are no good. Immunity can help, but only a few people have it and it takes a while to come out. Redirection also helps, but he tends to hit like a hammer (2 irreducible per hero on the opening turn, in addition to whatever he plays) and most people can only redirect limited amounts of damage. Mr. Fixer is helpful here, I guess, but he has to balance adding damaging tools or whatever the environment throws in.

On top of everything else, the environment varies between lethal (Exploding Chemical Vats) and obnoxious (those Healing Vats requiring Mr. Fixer to up his damage to get hits in, followed by a Vat explosion preventing him from contributing).

I've tried with heavy hitters and I've tried with utility characters and everyone just damn well blows up.

Twist the Ether and Flesh of the Sun God should help out. This should pretty much cut down Plague Rat's damage considerably, and you can take out every Infection without worry (Visionary is great at that). If the environment is really hitting hard, you can always use Mass Levitation. You can take prety much anyone as the third hero. Someone that can easily destroy environment cards, or someone that can help you get cards into play faster can make this a very easy win.

Only Plague Rat's end of turn damage is Irreducible, all his one-shots is regular damage. Wraith also has Throat Jab, which will shut his damage down for a round. Smoke Bombs helps out quite a bit, as he does slightly more damage to the lowest with one-shots. Grappling Hook is also great for destroying the Supercooled Vat and any of Plague Rat's ongoings.

With Mr. fixer, Jack Handle and Riveting Crane is fantastic. Let Fixer get infected, he will now deal all non-targets for 1 irreducible toxic damage and all damage dealt to those targets will now be Irreducible. Driving Mantis or Dual Crowbars is a good place holder for Jack handle. Infact, they are great together while he is infected, as he will try to deal himself 2 damage at the start, which he can redirect into Plague Rat, then he can hit a second target for another 2, since Fixer was supposed to be the first, you can hit Plague Rat again. Driving Mantis with Hoist Chain works as well, redirected Infection damage for the 1 point to Plague Rat, reducing his damage by 1. Then of course Strike will reduce it by another 1. Weakening his one-shots quite a bit. Dual Crowbars works will with Riveting Crane as well, sadly you will have to hit yourself for 2 and will no long benefit from DR, but the same applies to Plague Rat, since Dual Crowbars allows for a second target to be hit. Finally there is Grease Gun, allowing Plague Rat to do no damage for a round.

For a third hero, I would recommend Tachyon or Tempest. Tachyon will allow for extra card draws, meaning Wraith and Fixer can get through their deck faster and get wanted cards. Blinding Speed to get rid of nasty Ongoings/ENvironment cards. Hypersonic Assualt to Shut down Plague Rat's damage. She will also be building up a ton of damage with Light-Speed Barrage.

Reason for Tempest, he is also able to destroy Ongoing/Environment cards. Reclaim from the Deep will allow the heroes to reclaim some powerful one-shots. And Tempest is quite capable of dealing heavy damage throughout the game.

Edit: Also Wraith has 3 copies of Mega Computer, which if she can get all 3 in play will pratically shut down Environment damage. Pair that with a Infected Fixer with Riveting Crane and Jack Handle, Plague Rat will be the only one taking damage from the Environment, as long as Sewer Fiends can are not in play.

Going the Visionary and Ra route, you can also play Imbued Fire, thus getting rid of the Infection damage as well. Meaning the only damage that will be down to the heroes will be the Environment. Toss in Wraith with 3 Mega Computers and Visionary using Mass Levitation, the only way the Environment will deal any damage would be a Checmical Explosion being played with 3 Vats to destroy. But that will still only yield to 1 point of damage to all targets.

I'm a big fan of using Chrono-Ranger against Plague Rat, nothing says nemesis better than an infected Jim shooting the rat for 4 damage every single time he plays a card (on advanced), if you add in the bounties and the Compound Bow then you're getting a lot of extra damage for the measely points that PR kicks out at you.

Yeah, Jim versus Rat is epic fun :D. You can get a whole load of extra damage out without any input from other heroes - Nemesis bonus, Infection bonus (if Infected while the Locus is out), By Any Means, and Ultimate Target give you +4 to Rat, meaning the Compounded Bow will deal five and five damage by itself. And five damage for every plink from your many one-shots. Jim versus Rat doesn't tend to be a very long game, but in a good way - I've done it several times now and I don't recall losing (and all my games at home are with three heroes) :).

As mentioned, Mr Fixer is good against Rat if you can get out Jack Handle or something. Environment destruction is useful in Pike Industrial, since you can get rid of the more annoying cards (like the Mutagen or the vats). Damage nerfing is good, as long as it's damage prevention rather than reduction (since Rat deals a lot of irreducible damage). Also, ongoing destruction if he gets out the annoying Sewer Fiend or the pain-in-the-arse Bestial Vitality.

One good combo I've done once or twice is Omni-10 with his Ablative Coating and RPS - if he's Infected, he hits himself for irreducible toxic damage, which ignore his plating, therefore the RPS goes off as he's taken damage of a type covered by his current plating and he gets to hit Rat. Even better if you have either or both Innervation Rays out to regain the lost hp from hitting yourself :).

Omnitronx and Ablative Coating + RPS have made quick work of Plague Rat, for sure.  Omnitronx has an incredibly quick set up (likely to offset the fact that 5 damage will make him lose his stuff).  Also, since most of his activities are done at the beginning of his turn, he isn't hindered as much by Plague Rat's infected side, which forces heroes to use different Powers.  Add his Innervation Ray (or two, like Ameena said) for some great consistent healing and he makes a great choice against this villain.

The Visionary also shuts down Plague Rat every time I let her tag along; being able to control the villain/environment decks on top of Twist the Ether and her excellent Ongoing destruction for those pesky Infections makes her a must-have as well if you're really looking to stomp him.

For a good tank, Legacy is iffy on this one; he can provide constant healing and completely shut down the villain damage.  However, his damage boosts can begin to hurt as heroes deal themselves damage.  If you're looking for a tanky bruiser, I'd suggest Haka.  He can still shut down the damage with Ground Pound and Enduring Intercession can divert all the environment damage to him if you're desperate to keep OmniX and others away from thost Vat explosions.  And from what I've found, the best way to beat Plague Rat is to just smoke him into the ground with damage, and Haka is much better at dishing it out consistantly than Legacy is.

If you have the DW Promos, DW Ex-Pat makes for a fun choice, especially with Hair Trigger Reflexes in play.  That'll shut PR down fast.  Ex-Pat is also good for supplying constant, good damage and her Flak Jackets are perfect for the backlash that comes from destroying Infections.

Nightmist is also a beast (what else is new) with her ability to redirect damage every turn, allowing her to redirect the backlash from destroying Infections during other players turns.  

Overall, you can't go wrong againt Plague Rat; every hero will have their uses; just make sure you're prioritizing your defenses first, since as you've found out, PR can hit very hard, very quickly (especially in Pike Industrial Complex) and you can be down in HP before you even get set up.

Advanced Rat vs. Fanatic is epic.  I always beg for the first infection and then Lobby to keep locust around.  Pair her with Chrono and it is a quick death for the rat.

By any Means on Rat and Infection on Fanatic = 5 damage a card for Divine Focus, and 8 damage from Exorcism, Martyr gets sick at 7 to yourself and 10 to the rat.  7 damage to yourself and 23 to the rat is a great turn (using the one-shot that does 2 damage and grants you a second power).  If you grab visionary and Fanatic together you can TtE fanatic and she can turn infection damage to radiant and add that into Martyr as well, bringing that 23 to 26 damage.

Scholar is pretty wicked vs. Rat as well, infected Scholar always has room to heal, and throw a few Energy forms in play and that +2 gets really awesome.

Scholar/Fanatic/Tempest is a great team, you get to fight over who gets infected first.  Shackles and electrical storm and infection get you 10 damage to Rat on your turn, and vicious cyclone is amazing at 5 damage a card. (6 with By any Means)  Cyclone, By any Means, Electrical Storm and Shackles gets you 30 damage a turn with your card play still open.  Flash Flood and Ball Lightning are awesome as well in this fight.

Danmarshall, not sure what you mean about Plague Rat "forcing heroes to use different powers" on his flip side. The two powers on his flipped side don't override the powers heroes already have available - they're options you can use instead of whatever powers you currently have. Unless I've been doing it wrong all this time and those are the only powers you can choose between…but I don't recall his text implying that.

Um, perhaps I'm the one who's been playing wrong all this time?  I always assumed Infected Heroes needed to use those powers when infected; I guess I don't have any proof to back up that claim.  That's just what I assumed from reading the text.  Yikes.

Well I'll definitely need to read it more carefully next time; thanks for point it out.

It was confirmed that the powers granted by Plague Rat's flipped side were to be in addition to a hero's normal powers (not replacing them), and I've never seen any indication that there was any mechanism in place to force a player to use them. You'd think the card would mention that, if that were the case. 

Broken combo time? Broken combo time. NIGHTMIST. Mistform owns Plague Rat, since he doesn't have any on going destruction. Niether does Pike. Basically, you draw your entire deck into your hands while snug in your misty-ness, while letting the Rat and the Environment duke it out. Rat vs rat, as it were. Only come out to deal with the occasional Rat ongoing (the one that makes him immune to environment damage). With NM's drawing power, it should be easy to find Mist form :P

Too bad for your teammates though. Haha.

Yeah, Plague Rat is a pretty easy villain to break - Wagner Mars Base has Meteor Storm, which shuts him down completely and which he can't remove.  You just have to sort of agree not to pick a match where he'll have no chance, and if the randomizer hands it to you, you can treat it as a free win pretty much.  Some games just aren't equally hard.

You're not guaranteed to have a Meteor Storm come up before he kicks your arses, though - we tried fighting him on Mars once specifically to try out the "lol you can't hit us while we build up" thing, and a Meteor Storm didn't come out until the late game, perhaps a round or two from the end (I think we won, can't remember now - it was ages ago). Rat can put out a lot of damage, either directly via his one-shots or via heroes beating themselves (and each other, if Afflicted Frenzy is out) up, and you need to stay on top of that to be able to beat him.